Cobalt Skies and Too Blue Eyes
by YFate
Summary: A dream haunts Sango in the eyes of her newborn son. As the veils between this world and the next are drawn back on the night of seasonal equinox, she must consider that the ghost of the father might come seeking both her and her son… “after Naraku” canon
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, etc. This story is for entertainment purposes only.

_COBALT SKIES AND TOO-BLUE EYES_

Summary: A dream haunts Sango in the eyes of her newborn son. As the veils between this world and the next are drawn back on the night of seasonal equinox, she must consider that the ghost of the father might come seeking both her and her son… ("after Naraku" canon cont., SangoXBankotsu, some InuyashaXKagome)

_WORDS_

_kami - gods_

_houshi - Buddhist monk_

_oni - spider_

_Mikomi - hope_

_Geshi - summer's solstice, celebrated June 21st in the Gregorian calendar_

_-sama - honorific conferring great respect or 'lord'_

_taijiya - demon slayer_

_A/N: And so I start on yet _another_ fic. Sigh. But this came to me last night in a dream, and I had to sit and pound out this chapter on the keyboard or lose it utterly. I am pleased with the results. I knew I couldn't leave Sango and Bankotsu alone for long… (Fate)_

WARNING! LEMON WARNING! LIME ON FFNET! FLUFF AND WAFF, ANGST AND CHARACTER DEATH, ADULT SITUATIONS AND RUN ON SENTENCES, VERY LIKELY PWP THIS CHAPTER _(Lemons will be edited out on if you are over 17, you can read it on adultfanfictiondotnet and on mediaminerdotorg under "YoukaiFate")_

_CHAPTER ONE (GESHI)_

His eyes, of course, were blue. A beautiful blue, a _celestial_ blue---or so she told herself whenever she found her fingers lightly tracing the faint definition of his arching brows above the deep, clear eyes that had never changed in hue. Many of the older women in Kaede's village had told her not to think the blue granted him at birth would last, that most babes, born with such a bright color to their eyes, would darken in time to a more prosaic brown. But his beautiful blue eyes had never changed, in fact, the color had seemed to grow more intense, more brilliant, with each passing day of his precious little existence…

He was a gift of the kami, a blessing to her who had feared the loneliness of life more than ever she had the grim finality of death. To one who had lost most everyone she had ever truly cared for, he was a gift most precious. She feared it, sometimes, this ever-wondering love that would well up inside of her each time she looked at him. An ache would rise up in her throat, and she would find herself blinking back sweet tears of relief that he, at least, was still here for her to cherish and protect.

It frightened her, sometimes, how deeply he held her heart in his two, small hands. Poor thing. She didn't ever want to be a burden to him, or her deepening love to become a burden _for_ him. She would protect him with every last breath in her body, but she also knew that to hover over him was to stifle that small spark of life and awareness within him---that it would do more harm than good in the long run. She knew she had to carefully balance her overwhelming love for him with both stern guidance and nurturing tenderness so that he might one day realize his own potential and independence as a grown man, a warrior.

"He has the look of his father," the village women would say, delighted that so handsome a man was reborn among them. Sango would smile faintly, in gratitude that the gods had given her _that_, at least. She sought traces of her houshi in the pudgy roundness of his childish features that looked like any other baby's, fat and chubby and dearly loved. She was reassured by the soft strands of inky black hair that capped his little, round head, and by the blue eyes that didn't change, though the women had said they might. As the first long days of her slow recovery became weeks, and the weeks became months, he seemed to grow almost daily, until he now sat up on his own, and smiled real smiles back up at her, who he recognized as mother, and cooed and babbled nonsense to her in an attempt to reply to her own continuous babbling of loving attention.

The birth had been difficult. Her hips were narrow, her will somewhat lacking. The village women had muttered darkly among themselves that it was her spirit---all but broken by the houshi's sudden death in the unleashed, chaotic winds of his own curse---that had not wanted to live without him. While his last moments lay deeply mourned on that lonely field of battle, when they had finally defeated Naraku, she had passed the days of her growing pregnancy falling deeper into a hopeless, numbing despair of utter loss and overwhelming grief. All who were important to her now lay dead alongside the dark oni---her brother and her lover both sacrificed in that final, decisive confrontation.

Kagome had worried incessantly, driving her hanyou mate to distraction as the elderly midwife, Kaede, had grown more troubled as the long hours of her struggle to give birth had grown, and she had weakened hour by hour, her will to live almost gone. When finally he had come, weak cries gaining in strength as they laid him in her exhausted arms for the first time, she had looked upon him with dull brown eyes that did not truly _see_, for her spirit wandered far in sadness and pain, aching for the man that should have been standing beside her, beaming down with pride at the son she had finally given him, a long promise finally fulfilled.

They had all feared then that she would die, and leave the new babe orphaned in a harsh and lonely world---though he would never have been abandoned or left unloved, for Inuyasha and Kagome had already pledged silently to one another that they would take him, if Sango did not survive the long night…

But she _had_ survived, and it was because of him. For he had breathed new life into her as she had slowly felt the solid, growing weight of him in her arms, his fretful cries drawing her back from the encroaching darkness of despair. She had blinked, her gaze slowly focusing, to regard her son with faint astonishment as his little, curled fists waved, and he cried with hunger and fear for the strange new world he now found himself in. Her fingers, pale and shaking, the motion heavy and slow with weakness, had combed tentatively across his sweet little head, and his eyes, brilliantly clear and brilliantly blue, had opened for a bare moment before he screwed them tightly shut again, hating the flickering candlelight he could not quite see.

"He must nurse," the old miko had said, her voice like gravel and yet as soothing as Kirara's rumbling purrs of reassurance. She had helped shift the exhausted taijiya so that he might, and it had seemed as if they had both drawn sustenance and energy from the simple action, as faint color had returned to cheeks too pale and drawn from the past night's struggle. The haunted shadows had slowly receded from her dark eyes, though the sleepless shadows beneath them remained to tell of her exhaustion, and she had lain, unable to do much more than smile softly as life renewed within her in the simple act of holding him to her breast.

"He looks like Miroku," Kagome had whispered softly, tears in her eyes. The young miko had laid a hand on his head, as if in benediction.

Sango had nodded, weak and exhausted but oddly content for the first time in far too long. Her voice was faint, yet full of a love she had never thought to behold again, as she whispered softly, "Mikomi."

"Hope…" Kagome had smiled at the name, wiping the fresh tears from her eyes and sniffling as Sango had finally succumbed to exhaustion, and slept heart-healed for the first time in many months.

And so he had been named, little Mikomi, only child of a monk and a friend so deeply mourned by all of them. Sango's recovery had been slow, though her will to live had been rekindled, and she had fretted over how long it took, and how impatient she now was to get up and be about. Kaede had soothed her, saying that one who had been weakened by grief and so close to death could not hope to recover her strength so quickly. Sango had felt guilty, then, over how much worry she had caused her friends, though each of them in their own way had reassured her that it was okay now---now that she had chosen to live, and all because _he_ needed her to, needed her as much as she needed him.

Time had crept by, measured by how slowly she had recovered her strength, and celebrated with each small triumph as little Mikomi grew and flourished under her awed gaze. He was a happy child, rarely fretful, and as healthy and strong as any young, worried mother could wish. His eyes remained as deep a blue as at his birthing. The color had actually lightened from a dark indigo to a more brilliant twilit hue, and continued to deepen in color, to the delight of everyone who saw him. His hair, so thin and soft, grew slowly into soft swirls of inky promise, and everyone insisted that he took so much after his father that there was none who could tell the difference between them.

She should have been reassured by that, and had spent many hours just looking at him, seeking some trace of Miroku in this, their son. But the strong features others claimed to recognize were baffling to her, lost in the babyish roundness of childish innocence that blinked back up at her, his happy gurgle and drooling smile finally making her laugh and kiss him with apology for staring so intently. He was, more than anything, _himself, _and she should content herself with that, and deny the worry that nibbled uneasily at the back of her mind.

For there had once been another blue-eyed man in her life, and though there had never been love between them, there had been the act of loving, though to this day she was still unsure that it had not been more than an idle dreaming lost in the darkness of a warm midsummer night long ago…

But each time those beautiful blue eyes looked up at her with such innocent trust, she doubted, and worried, and wondered uneasily if it _had_ been but a midsummer night's dream…

ooOOooOOooOOoo

Some villages celebrated the shortest night of summer with a festival. Sango's village had always been too busy to worry much about it. If anything, they had never welcomed the night with aught but resignation, as the youkai were often wont to use the long hours until dawn to wreak havoc among the weaker humans who could not defend themselves against their aggressiveness. On Geshi, the summer solstice, the veils between this world and the next were thinned, and the spirits, both good and evil, could be enticed to cross the barrier separating them, and lend strength or aid to either.

This night should have been like any other for their small group, though they had welcomed the brief respite with more than a little relief. The Band of Seven---seemingly resurrected back to life, or perhaps, some new group of imaginative bandits hoping to use the slaughtered Shichinintai's fearfully bloody reputation for some obscure reason of their own---had not deigned to attack them that day, and so they had all used the brief respite from constant fighting to grab at a faint chance to relax. They had stopped early in the afternoon, much to Inuyasha's disgust, though he hadn't protested too loudly, as was normally his wont. The worry still nagged at him over just how close his friends had come to dying from exposure to some of Mukotsu's more insidious poisons, and that had held his sharp tongue for once.

That particular experience had haunted all of them, and brought home to each just how fragile and unpredictable life could be. At any moment, any of them could vanish from this world, drawn into death by the dangers that constantly hovered all around them. The unspoken threat lay heavy on their hearts, causing them to continually look over their shoulders, uneasily wondering when the next blow might fall, when the next strike might come, and who might fall beneath it…

Sango had been more affected by the ordeal than she dared show anyone but her beloved houshi, whose quiet strength she had always been able to draw upon. Troubled by their near brush with death, and worried now that she might die, her vengeance unsatisfied, her brother unclaimed, and her love for him forever unknown, she had sought comfort in Miroku's all-too-willing embrace. Miroku had been delighted by the urgency that had driven away her fears of the unknown ways between man and maid, and had been considerate---and thorough---in the taking of her virginity. She had held him, after, as he trembled in the culmination of passion, awed by the gift of trust she had given up to him.

They had not spoken of commitment, not then. It was enough to hold each other, to feel the strong beat of their hearts, skin on skin, and know that life still surged un-sundered through each, that the shadow of death that had hovered so closely over them had not yet reached out its cold grasp to take the other away…

_"_Houshi-sama…" The urgency had come again, to rekindle that awareness of life once more, and he had kissed her, deeply, and had shown her again with his body all the pleasures she had long denied herself. They had eventually fallen into exhausted slumber, curled into each other's arms, fulfilled and sustained for now by that simple expression of their as yet unvoiced love.

They had arisen that dawn before the others, and unspoken lay the agreement between them that they should not let the others yet know. Inuyasha probably suspected, for he kept glancing at them out of the corner of his amber eyes, though he forbore to comment. Sango was relieved that Shippo, for once, seemed not to notice the change between her and the houshi, and that Kagome was all but oblivious in her maidenly innocence. They had continued their long, weary journey to Mount Hakurei, which they all suspected hid a lot more than its rocky, cloud-draped façade presented to the world.

The chance to be alone again had not presented itself until _this_ night, when the summer's twilight draped itself across the cobalt sky as they made an early camp in a convenient clearing among the branching trees just off the dirt road they traveled along. The moon hung fat and full in the darkening sky, it's mournful surface slowly brightening as the sun finally descended and the night of the summer's solstice encroached.

Exhausted for once, Shippo had promptly fell asleep after a quick dinner of smoked fish fresh-caught in the nearby stream and a bowl of Kagome's instant ramen, which Inuyasha had devoured just as quickly as the little kitsune. Kirara had curled herself around the sleeping fox, her purrs reassuring Sango that she was content for the night to stay with him. Inuyasha, eying the monk and the taijiya who oh-so-casually refused to look at one another, had abruptly stood up. Grabbing a protesting Kagome by one, clawed hand, he had disappeared into the woods, hauling her after him until their arguing voices had dwindled into the muffled silence of the intertwining trees.

Miroku had grinned, aware that Inuyasha had just given him the perfect opportunity to further his new acquaintance with the slayer, who was still shy and hesitant, even after giving herself so willingly to him. Sango had blushed, aware of his hentai thoughts, and felt a surprising tingle of anticipation curl low in her belly. Without a word, she had put her hand in his when he had bowed so sweetly to her, and they, too, had quickly disappeared into the muffling forest, to find a place where they could renew this new-found aspect of their complicated relationship.

As before, urgency had lent haste to their first, tentative touches. Clothing had been abandoned as quickly as caution, and Miroku had more than lived up to his reputation of sexual prowess as she had clung to him, crying out her pleasure as he had ridden out his passion...

Drawing the sweaty black bangs from off of his forehead, Sango had felt her love for him welling up deep inside of her, though still she hesitated to speak of it, for he had said nothing as yet to her of _his_. She was content, then, to lie there and hold him. Eventually, he had roused himself, and once desire had been rekindled, they had made sweet, languorous love, there in the shadow-ridden warmth of the deepening night. The close-knit branches of the fir trees that surrounded them had blocked the moon's wan light from penetrating their chosen nest, and she could barely see him beside her, though she could feel the strength and warmth of his well-defined chest under his cheek as she curled up along his side. He draped an arm across her bared shoulders, the beads wrapped across his palm hard knots between the whispering purple silk covering his right hand. He had murmured sweet nonsense to her as she had dropped off to sleep against him with a sigh of utter contentment, the tight-strung exhaustion of the long day finally catching up with her…

It was some time later, when the night had deepened to such darkness that her sleepy gaze could only make him out as a blurred shadow beside her, that he had unwound himself, murmuring something she could not remember as he lightly kissed her temple, promising to be back in just a moment. She had murmured sleepily for him to hurry, and had curled herself into the fading warmth left in the spot he had just abandoned. He had draped his long robes across the needle-cushioned earth as a bed, and they had used her yukata as a light blanket to keep away the faint chill in the air of the lengthening night. Pulling the yukata tighter around her bare shoulders, Sango had nestled into the houshi's woolen robes, and tumbled back into sleep, missing him, but knowing he would be back at any moment.

_And that was when she dreamed…_

She thought it was him, returning. She had woken with a soft sigh as a gentle, but firm, hand had been laid lightly on her shoulder. She lay, half-curled on her stomach, the yukata draped lightly across her back and tangling among her bent legs. The light touch of his calloused fingers had wandered down the curve of her arm, as if mapping her skin anew. Tingles of awareness had been left in their wake, her skin goose-bumping behind the slow caress. She had arched her back, her eyes still closed, her sleepy awareness overcome by misty feelings of dawning excitement as his fingers had circled over her hip, to then sweep back up the curve of her spine.

"Miro---" She sighed out, her breasts growing heavy as desire curled low in her belly.

"Shh…" His voice had been husky, deep and seductive as his lips brushed lightly over her temple, in the same spot as when he had left her. He draped himself behind her, his warm lips whispering a path down her cheek as he paused to nibble on the delicate shell of one ear. His fingers curled over the edge of her yukata, tugging lightly, drawing the impromptu blanket down her arm and hips in a sensuously slow, but determined, motion. She shivered in response as the light chill of the night air whispered along her exposed skin.

His warmth had soon dispelled the night's chill, for wherever the warm flesh of his hand wandered, her skin grew flushed and heated. The heat and strength of him, behind her, made her tremble as he nestled her more firmly against him. She shivered at the awareness of it, and he chuckled lightly into her shoulder, pausing to kiss it softly even as his fingers wandered further...

"Please…" She whispered urgently as he drew patterns over her skin. She could already feel the taunt anticipation building as she restlessly moved against his teasing touch.

He chuckled again, a dark chuckle of seductive promise...

_ooOOoo edited for lemony content ooOOoo_

Never, ever, had it felt like _this, _and although she did not join him in that fiercely primitive completion, she felt oddly satiated and lazy as he collapsed on top of her like one dead. She trembled at his weight and the warmth of it, her fingers sweeping up the side of his arm and shoulder to touch along his buried cheek as he shuddered into the curve of her shoulder.

_"Damn." _His voice was hoarse, and almost awed as the powerful muscles in his shoulders and back tightened, gathering himself to look up at her. The shadows of the deep night blurred his features, making his eyes dark shadows, the firm line of his lips and the sharp angle of his jaw only a touch lighter than the inky shadow of sweat-dampened bangs that tangled across his forehead.

His calloused palm came to cup her chin up to his so that he could kiss her, his lips soft and firm as his tongue delved deep, tangling with hers. Sango swept her own hands along the wide sweep of his shoulders, surprised by the toned definition in them, which seemed so much more muscled than she remembered. Her fingers trailed along the strong line of his jaw to bury themselves in the nape of his neck, and she was surprised to find the thick hair there that lay bundled into a loosened braid, rather than a simple tail.

Her jerk of surprise had him groaning as his body responded to her sudden movement. He swallowed her astonished protest against the firm press of his mouth as he deepened the kiss. She pushed urgently at his shoulders, but she could not move his weight from off her. He circled her wrists with both of his hands, drawing them down and pinning them along either side of her head as she tried to wriggle free, and only succeeded in bringing his need to raging life.

He chuckled into her mouth, following her as she tried to turn her head away. He thought it a game, a tease, to entice and enflame, and so he whispered against her lips, ignoring her muffled protest, "Won't take long, girl. I promise…"

And it didn't...

The pleasure was so mind-blowing and intense that it shook both of them to the core, and left them spent and exhausted as they collapsed back on the blankets in a sweaty tangle of heavy limbs and heady release.

He gathered himself once more to roll up off of her, and she whimpered slightly as his heat left hers. He lightly touched her cheek with casual tenderness, and drew her yukata back up over her shoulders as the night air chilled her exposed skin. She trembled as his lips brushed her temple once more, and he whispered softly, "I will return, one day. I promise…"

And then he was gone, and she was left to curl herself into confused uncertainty as exhaustion won out over worry and she slept once more, rousing only when her houshi had returned. He kissed her awake with tender attention, drawing her once more into his warm embrace, and rousing her in sleepy protest as he pulled her to him, desire evident.

He had kissed her, apologizing for taking longer than he should to go and check on their friends. Sango had trembled in his arms, and asked wonderingly, "Was it a dream, then…?"

"Did you dream of me?" She could not see his lazy smile in the darkness, or the rather pleased expression in his deep, indigo eyes.

She bit her lip, uncertain what to say. He took her hesitancy as shy timidity, and so he artfully used every formidable tool of persuasion at his disposal to coax her exhausted body to respond to his growing ardor. He had made slow love to her, his body promising things his heart knew but he was still too cautious to utter, for there was still the darkness of a shadowed fate at the hands of Naraku that lay hovering between them and a true ending of perfect happiness. Sango had clung to him, in despair and confusion, letting go of her awareness of that _Other_ to cling desperately to this, her reality, and her new-won love…

ooOOooOOooOOoo

When next she saw him, that Other, she could not believe that it was _he_ whom she had held in the dreamy darkness of a midsummer's night, and was desperate to believe that it had been but a dream, only a dream, for he was their avowed enemy. The fearsome leader of a fearsome band of bloodthirsty murderers who had been given life again by Naraku, he and his brothers were set the task of killing the oni's enemies in return for the use of the tainted Jewel shards that aided their resurrection.

He had not betrayed knowing her by so much as even a look or flicker of awareness. He ignored her as he ignored the others, engaging Inuyasha as the only one suitably strong enough to be considered a worthy opponent. There was only the once---and it could have been her fleeting imagination---when they had been on the island, seeking the reason behind the powerful barrier that surrounded Mount Hakurei in waves of purifying energy. Bankotsu had faced them alone, battling Inuyasha in his weakened state before the hanyou had driven him off with the revitalized Wind Scar, after Miroku and the headman's son had broken through the Living Buddha's sacred relic.

It was during that battle, when Miroku and Kagome still searched for the sacred relic, that Sango had distracted Bankotsu from landing a killing blow on the weakened hanyou. Flinging her Hiraikotsu with all her might, she had swept the giant boomerang between the two fighters, touching neither. She had been strangely loathe to actually hurt Bankotsu, the memory of a dreamy midsummer's night had made her pull her hand at the last minute, so that her boomerang spun dead center between them, hitting neither.

He had looked at her then, as the dust cleared from the mighty weapon's passage, and the look in his cobalt eyes had made her drop her own in acute embarrassment as the color abruptly left her pale cheeks. Inuyasha had shouted, drawing Bankotsu's attention back to himself, and Shippo had jumped into her arms. Sango had buried her mixed feelings in comforting the little kitsune, hugging him to her as a lifeline in a sudden sea of uncertainty.

Had it then, been but a dream? She might never know.

Except that those brilliant blue eyes now haunted her in the brilliant blue eyes of her son…


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, etc. This story is for entertainment purposes only.

_COBALT SKIES AND TOO-BLUE EYES_

Summary: A dream haunts Sango in the eyes of her newborn son. As the veils between this world and the next are drawn back on the night of seasonal equinox, she must consider that the ghost of the father might come seeking both her and her son… ("after Naraku" canon cont., SangoXBankotsu, some InuyashaXKagome)

_WORDS_

_Shuubun - autumnal equinox, celebrated September 23rd on the Gregorian calendar_

_A/N: Thank you for the reviews. Keeps me typing. _)

WARNING! ADULT SITUATIONS AND ISSUES, NO ONE UNDER 17, PLEASE!

_CHAPTER TWO (SHUUBUN)_

"You think you'll be okay?" Inuyasha shifted from foot to foot, anxious to be back on the road home to his village and his mate, who was due to give birth to their first pup any day now.

"Yes," Sango smiled at him, understanding both his anxiety and his indecision. He hated to leave her alone in the abandoned demon slayers' village with only her tiny son for company and her pet neko to play guard. But she was now fit and strong, more than recovered from Mikomi's birth, and she could take care of herself, thank you.

"Inuyasha, go home," she advised with a warm smile for his touching concern. "I'll be fine. It's Kagome who needs you right now."

He growled, irritated with the soft look in her deep brown eyes. "You're sure you'll be all right?" He hedged, his claws curling over the tattered hilt of the sword at his hip.

"I'll be _fine_," Sango emphasized the last word. "Kirara is here to protect me, should I need it."

The small neko mewed, her eyes glowing crimson assurance.

Inuyasha growled back at her, his eyes narrowed.

The small neko gave him a disdainful sniff, her twin tails lashing in thinly veiled irritation.

"What did you just say to her?" Sango demanded, now irritated with the brusque hanyou.

"Feh." Inuyasha's mouth quirked. "I only reminded her that she better protect the both of you, or else."

"Inuyasha!" Sango protested the insult to her own abilities. The hanyou only rolled his eyes, fisting his arms into his sleeves and fixing her with a gimlet glare.

"Tell the Little Hentai goodbye for me, and tell him I'll be back in a couple of weeks to check up on his stubborn goat of a mother."

It was Sango's turn to scowl. Inuyasha insisted on calling her darling little baby boy by that odious title. Never mind the goat insult, she wanted to smack him into oblivion. There were times, like now, that she wished she had Kagome's ability to _sit_ that damn mutt…

A flash of a fanged grin, and he gathered her stiff body to his for a quick, hard hug before vaulting up on the creaking roof of her chosen hut. Taking a striding leap, he vanished over the recently-repaired timbered palisade that surrounded the small village in protection. Sango glared after him before shrugging helplessly as Kirara grinned up at her.

Inuyasha, as usual, had just had the last word.

An angry cry behind her made Sango turn, all thoughts of the irritating hanyou fleeing before the needs of her son. Gathering him up in her arms, she soothed him. He smiled at her, babbling as he made a grab for the simple thong necklace she wore. The plain brass rings she had purloined from Miroku's staff were one of his favorite toys.

He was teething, and liked the feel of the cool metal on his aching gums. Sango put him back in the small, oddly built "crib" Inuyasha had made from something Kagome had drawn out on paper. He fretted, unusual for such a happy babe, until she was able to loosen the knot on her simple, leather necklace and pull off a ring to give to him. He gurgled happily and promptly stuffed the metal ring as far into his mouth as he could manage, which was really not that far. He chomped and drooled and nibbled and drooled and smiled and drooled, and was happy as a clam with the simple ring to play with. Sango spent a few minutes ruffling the silky black strands of his dark head before the need to unpack her bags had her drawing away with a regretful sigh.

Inuyasha and Kagome, along with a few of the other villagers, had come and spent some time in _her_ old village, once Sango had made known her intent was to eventually return to the home of her happy childhood. It was remote enough that most demons and daimyo would take little interest in it, and safe enough for her to raise her son in the ways that she wished. For he would be the heart of her clan someday, and she could not think of training him amidst any other surroundings except _here_, where the spirits of her forefathers might keep a protective eye on him.

Her friends had spent quite a bit of time while she recovered her strength in repairing the stout palisade that surrounded the village, in fixing up a few of the outbuildings for her use, and in furnishing the cot she had chosen, as well as the gardens that would supply her few needs. Kaede had given her seedlings, carefully wrapped and planted by Kagome in the late spring, mere weeks after Mikomi's birth. The old priestess had known, even as Sango had not, that the slayer would want to return and raise her son there, in her own village, with her own people's graves to surround her with both love and resolution.

Mikomi had become the most important thing in her life, and Sango was determined to raise him as best she could, in the best way she knew how. It might mean a bit of loneliness, but she had felt _right_ in coming home, and between Inuyasha and Kirara, traveling back and forth between the demon slayer's village and Kaede's was not the long ordeal it normally would have been for the barefoot peasant.

Kirara mewed at her feet, rubbing her cheek across her ankle and wrapping her twin tails around her lower calf. Sango bent to scratch her sweet little friend behind her black-tipped ears. Her caressing fingers smoothed over the oddly-crossed, inky shape on the neko's creamy forehead, and Kirara's purr rumbled up in counterpoint to her repetitive motions.

"With you, Kirara, and little Mikomi, what else could I ever need?" Sango said with a soft smile. The youkai blinked up at her, her expression smug, and batted her leg with her twin tails before literally turning tail and stalking out the door, tails flagging lazily as she sauntered forth into the autumnal sunshine.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

In a few weeks, Sango's life had settled into a simple routine. Mikomi took up much of it, though he was eating some soft, solid foods now to supplement the milk he still suckled from her own breast. She had actually managed to rig her old blue shawl into a rough, if secure, baby sling as Kagome had suggested, so that she could carry him with both hands free to do whatever task she needed to. He was already trying to sit up, though he often rolled sideways, laughing as his mother laughed, enjoying the new game immensely. In next to no time, he would be crawling about and then she would be in for it, trying to keep up with the energetic little minx.

Gathering late herbs in the thick forest just outside the village, her baby soundly asleep in his sling at her side, Sango was surprised to find how much the shadows had lengthened around her. Putting a hand to her back, she straightened her spine as her father had taught her, one vertebrae at a time, and felt one of them pop with released tension. Stooping to gather her woven basket---which was somewhat heavy due to her copious labors---she called to Kirara.

The neko appeared in her larger form, a brace of rabbits dangling from her mouth. Her eyes glowed at the success of her hunt, and Sango smiled, thinking how tasty they would be, stewed with some of the herbs she had managed to collect. The neko kept pace with her slower tread. She had worked for far longer than she had realized, and she was glad to turn her weary steps toward home. The sky was a blaze of crimson glory, the puffy clouds that scuttled across the horizon touched with tints of vermillion and ocher. The sun was a fat drop of blood on the edge as it slowly descended. The moon, at three-quarters full, was a luminescent sphere gaining strength in the sky as it slowly rippled into the long, blue and purple shadows of twilight.

Mikomi awoke not long after she returned to their hut, and she fed him idly at the breast as she gutted and cleaned one of the wild rabbits Kirara had hunted up. The neko sat on the other side of the fire, still in her larger size, carefully licking her paws clean after having made a good meal of the other one. Sango cooked her own supper, leaving the rest to simmer overnight with a handful of rice to thicken into a good soup. Wild onions and tawny roots provided a satisfying repast with the skewered meat, and she offered Mikomi a taste of each. He made a face at the thin slice of onion she gave him, and gnawed on the small bits of rabbit, sucking the juice from them, but spitting out the rejected, dry chunks with fussy disdain. Sango laughed, and cleaned him up, changing his soiled swaddling cloths for new and draping a strange kimono Kagome had brought back from her time---a solid tee-shirt, as she called it, with fuzzy rabbits dancing across the front.

Mikomi was not pleased with the tee-shirt kimono, and fussed until she finally took it off of him. Happiest when naked, he sat in his cradle (which had become more of a convenient pen to keep him tucked in and out of the way), and babbled at her as he clanged two of his beloved rings together before ignoring one to put the other in his mouth.

Sango busied herself around the hut, tidying up the small space and sweeping out the thin layer of dust that always seemed to accumulate through the bamboo curtain strung across the doorway. The night was unusually warm for this time of year, and so she left the shutters off of the window, not even bothering to draw the netting that she used in spring and summer to keep the flying insects out. She could hear crickets singing in the darkness, and she felt a cozy sense of peace descend upon her as she took the time to separate the herbs she had gathered earlier, hanging some to dry in the back of her chest and bundling others to be pounded into various ointments, medicines and spices. She hummed softly under her breath as she worked, making Mikomi babble in his pen. Her voice was not flawless, but there was a clear, sweet tone to it that he liked to hear, smiling sleepily up at her before finally closing his eyes and settling down to sleep.

Sango banked the fire, kindling a single rush-light from the flames. The night was warm and still, so she actually pinned back the bamboo curtain to let a little more air in to pull out the smoke inside the hut from the banked coals. Kirara stretched her long form out before curling up to sleep, leaving Sango to work on her herbs in cozy silence as the mid-autumn night unfolded, her tiny hut a welcoming beacon in the darkness to weary souls who might wander on the long night of fall's solstice.

She lost track of time in the simple act of pounding herbs. With pestle and mortar, she mashed and hummed beneath her breath the old songs her mother had taught her oh-so-very long ago. The memory didn't hurt as it used to, and she was caught up in her own happy recollections of a warm and fairly care-free childhood…

A sudden chill in the air made her look up with uneasy surprise, the simple song dying on her lips as she shivered. She listened intently to the night, which had stilled into silence, even the crickets having fallen abruptly still. Kirara opened her eyes and raised her head. The neko blinked, whiskers twitching, before glancing back over her shoulder at Sango, who shrugged slightly.

Kirara yawned, stretched, and immediately tucked herself into a tight ball---or as tight a ball as her larger frame would allow her. Sango smiled at the large cat's blatant unconcern, and shrugged her uneasiness aside. She heard the particular sounds of Mikomi waking, irritably wanting to be fed his late night meal. Wiping her hands on her simple green skirt, Sango hurried over to his pen, tugging at the ties to loosen her simple yukata as she did so.

Mikomi let out a thin cry, fussing for her to hurry. Picking him up in her arms, she cradled him to her, struggling with the knot that had formed on the last of her ties, made awkward with one hand. Impatient, her son let out a loud wail, fretting over how long she was taking about feeding him when he was positively _starving_. Sango cuddled him to her, making soothing sounds as the damn knot was finally freed so she could shrug one shoulder aside and bare her swollen breast.

Mikomi promptly latched on to her nipple with a glad cry, as if afraid she would hide it away again behind that offensive fabric that always got in his way. He clamped down on her breast with unexpected ferocity, for he had been very hungry, and the sharp pain made Sango wince and let out a startled gasp as he suckled fiercely.

Mikomi calmed down once he realized she was not about to take away his dinner, and she felt the familiar tug and strange, rushing sensation as her milk responded to her child's demands. Cradling him to her breast, she made soothing circles along his back to relax him even more. A small fist came to curl along the curve of her breast, and he looked up at her, his eyes so brilliant and sparkling a blue with the forgotten tears of frustration adding tiny beads of light in the yellow-orange glow of the single rush-light.

She sat down on the raised dais that separated one side of the small hut from the other, tucking one foot under her and allowing the other to dangle freely over the edge. She softly kissed the top of his silky head, and sang softly to him, a mother's lullaby she remembered from her own, as he blinked up at her, the soft bud of his mouth busy against her heavier breast, which had grown over the course of her pregnancy to accommodate his continual appetite.

Peace settled over her, and she smiled, her voice soft on the quiet warmth of the night…

ooOOooOOooOOoo

It was the cry that had called to him, though he did not know why. He had walked this path before, though he did not know the why of that, either. Tonight, of all nights, the veils between the living world and the next were thinned, and his restless wandering had taken him through the misty veil that separated the two, until his feet had slipped over the grass and graveled paths with easy familiarity.

Her light had drawn him, a warmth in the darkness he had come to expect from this abandoned village, where no ghosts stirred but he. There should have been more like him, there were enough graves to tell tales of tragedy in the not-so-distant past, but they were quiescent, the ones buried therein at peace.

Unlike him, who could never be truly at peace, for he felt vaguely that something had been left unfinished in this, the living world now denied him, and he wandered idly on the nights when he could, when the veils thinned at each of the seasonal solstices, and he could slip through the misty veils at his choosing.

His feet made no impression on the ground, though he could feel it solid beneath him. Everything felt solid and real to him, though he knew from experience that the living beings of this world would not feel him or even see him unless he so chose. Sometimes, he liked to play tricks on the living, driving them mad with his teasing, but tonight he felt oddly apprehensive, his spirit restless.

_Something left undone…_

The thought plagued him, ever driving him to wander, and somehow, his restless soul felt comforted by the small, flickering glow in the distance. He was drawn to it as a moth to flame, but ignored the uneasy prickle of warning that crept down his spine. The physical things of this world could not hurt him, unless he should stumble across something more supernatural or demonic, like a gaki---a demon who lived off of the souls of others---and they would have to be _far_ stronger of will than he, if they were ever so stupid as to actually try and attack him.

The thin cry of a fretful child had made him pause as something within him answered it, recognizing it as something important to him. Curiosity piqued by the unusual stirring, he had quickened his pace in time to see a young woman, her creamy skin shadowed by the oil's light to a dusky, flickering peach as the rush-lamp behind her sputtered in the faint chill of his approach.

He watched in silent fascination as she picked up the child, and cradled him against her. One hand was busy at her yukata, the babe fussing at her to hurry up. She finally managed to loosen the constrictive fabric, and shrugged it down off of her shoulder to expose a breast. He admired the smooth expanse of her skin thus exposed, until she shifted the babe and winced as he clamped down on her nipple, a soft gasp of surprise escaping her lips.

And that was when he recognized her.

That gasp was all too familiar. It whispered to him of a balmy night in midsummer, when he had come across a young peasant-woman lying naked and just abandoned by her casual lover beneath the intertwining fir trees of a remote forest. A forest that had crept below the distant, rocky heights of now-rubbled Mount Hakurei…

He had been resurrected back into life with the gift of a Jewel shard, him and his brothers, and he had been heady with it, exhilarating in living once more with no worries save following his own idle inclination and in taking down the oni's enemies, the Jewel shard a good exchange for what should have been an easy task.

He had taken advantage of the delightful opportunity presented him that night, and had lain with the girl, who had thought perhaps that he was but her returned lover, for she kept calling him by strange titles and names, and welcomed him with little restraint. He remembered her, for she had been particularly memorial, her body responding so freely to his, but he had soon forgotten her as other things distracted him, the news of two of his brothers' deaths coming as a hard blow to him on the next morning's dawn. He had thought of her, occasionally, with a fond smile that he would have felt for any beautiful woman who had caught his passing fancy, but then he had become more and more absorbed with the problems of taking out that damn hanyou and his pesky little band of misfit followers---who had proved more difficult to kill than he could have ever expected.

He had been a bit taken aback to learn that she, his enchanting little tennyo in the woods on the whimsical night of a midsummer's fancy, had been one of the inu-gumi. She was a taijiya, a demon slayer, and he had learned that it was her brother, Kohaku, who he had teasingly called ninja and who had been a rather strange messenger for their benefactor, Naraku. He had idly taken note of her before, even thought that she was perhaps a bit too beautiful to be very effective as a _true_ warrior. He had thought that the others merely humored her strange whims, as he had humored Jakotsu and his strange penchant for wearing women's kimono. He had seen stranger things than that in his time, and why should he begrudge any other what they might want to do? So long as they never interfered with what _he_ wanted…

He had always been distracted by that infuriating hanyou, and his eagerness to take on the dog-eared braggart and make him eat his brash words on the sharp edge of his beloved Banryuu. He had paid little attention to her until that day on the island, when that other girl---passably pretty in her own way but no match for the studied grace of the taijiya---Kagome, had wounded him in the arm with her miko arrow of purification.

He had almost managed to take down that aggravating half-dog. He was about to strike the hanyou a final blow when she, the taijiya, had abruptly interfered. She had thrown her giant, bone boomerang between them with a careless maneuver that had surprised the shit out of him. He had seen her by then in action, and knew that she was deadly accurate with that strange weapon of hers. Why she had spared him, when she could have at least knocked him aside for a moment or two, had caused him to stare at her in utter astonishment as the dust had slowly cleared. He had recognized her then, recognized her as his little wood-nymph, and she had flushed, in knowing and shame, for they were enemies.

Her shame had infuriated him, for some strange reason. He had not liked finding out that she was his enemy. He had not liked finding out that she was one of the ones he had been contracted to kill…

But he had not killed her, or any of them, for that matter. It should have pissed him off, that none of them had suffered anything more than passing wounds, when all of he and his lay dead, but none of that shit hardly mattered anymore. Naraku was dead, as _he_ was dead, and the living world went on as if they had never even existed within it. His brothers' spirits did not wander as he did. He was uncertain what, exactly, had happened to all of them. He knew Jakotsu, at least, now lay in eternal peace, for his loyal friend had come to him once, not long after his own second death, and told him that his troubled soul had found it, and that _he_ should, as well.

But Bankotsu could not find peace, for there was something that continually nagged at him, something left yet undone. He had once believed in nothing, that the living world was the only world, and he slept away the first ten years of death---of his first death, not his second---in oblivion of what lay beyond. He now knew of the next world, knew it familiarly, and knew that his restless soul might have finally found peace if he had but allowed it. But he was not done with _this_ world yet, there was that which called to him, making him wonder and wander, and maybe, just maybe, he had just found the reason why…

He watched her silently as she seated herself, cradling the child to her breast. The round head, dark of hair, perfectly matched the roundness of her hidden breast and the rush-light behind them had lent an almost ethereal glow around the homey scene. His heart ached suddenly, for something he could not name, and irritation made his eyes glow. Why the hell was he wasting what little time granted him on this night in watching her? She had been but a passing fancy, an unexpected opportunity he could not resist on a night more than a year gone…

Her soft voice came to him then, singing a silly little lullaby to her child, who clutched her breast with greedy intent before she casually switched him to the other. The babe now lay facing him, and the little bugger was nothing special, fat and round and full of plump little wrinkles with a cap full of silky black hair and bright cobalt eyes that blinked sleepily up at his mother, who continued to croon to him as if it might help to relax the brat.

His gaze kept resting on the child, however, and he felt strung as tight as a bow as he stared at those too-blue eyes---eyes that were all too familiar to him, for they had stared back at him every single day of his life, whenever he had happened to look into the shiny reflection of his beloved Banryuu and found them there, squinting back at him.

It was impossible. The babe couldn't be more than six months old---he had been dead for over a year. He suddenly reckoned up the passing months, as he had not before, and realized with a start that it could very well be true, impossible and improbable as it was…

His son. She held his son. _His son._

Dawning realization held him enthralled, as he finally comprehended what it was, exactly, that he had left undone on this earth. It was his son who called to him, who kept him from seeking the peace of the grave. It was she who had given him such an unexpected gift, and he was suddenly furious at the thought that his son was left to this harsh world with nothing and no one but a haunting ghost who was filled with aching awareness that there was not much he could do to protect the only thing on this earth that he could claim to be part of him. His son…his _son_…

He remembered, suddenly, the casual promise he had made her, there in the darkness of a midsummer's night, as if he had actually meant to keep it. He had, perhaps, meant to keep it---at least, at that time, and in the heat of the moment---though he had forgotten all about it later, believing there was no way their paths would ever cross again. He had thought of it with disgruntlement when he had learned just who she _was_---taijiya, and enemy---and had thought with irritation that it might be, perhaps, the first promise he had never kept.

_"I will return, one day. I promise…"_

Casual words, empty words made in the quiet darkness of the night. He rather thought the gods of fate must be laughing at him right now, caught in his own trap. For he was a ghost, a restless spirit who wandered the night seeking that which would make him whole…

Though perhaps he had just found it.

_My son._

He continued to watch them, as the babe finally fell asleep and the woman shrugged her simple yukata back into place. She wrapped the child in warm blankets before laying him carefully on her own sleeping pallet. He watched as she then went to the bamboo curtain to hook it back into place, though she left the shutters off of the slatted windows, the night warm enough to do without, and bent down to scratch at the large neko that draped itself so casually beneath one window.

He watched, blue eyes glowing faintly, as she undressed herself, pulling the simple garments from her and casually draping them across a small stool to one side of the banked fire. Blowing out the rush-light, she casually stretched, her body glowing in an umber outline of shadowed darkness, backlit by the banked embers of her fire. Her breasts rose as she arched her spine, her arms held up above her head in an unconsciously erotic pose that had him remembering other aspects of a distant midsummer's night, and his groin tightened in healthy response to the alluring memories. He grimaced, all too aware that there was not much he could do about it. There were not many handy female specters hanging about who might be interested in sharing sex with a handsome, unattached male ghost. Female specters who wandered the earth were usually too caught up in their own despair, weeping and sniffling and driving him insane with their mournful moans, their unceasing complaints or their cringing regret…

Having stretched herself to his distracted annoyance, she was quick to cover her lithe frame with a simple white yukata that did little to hide her generous breasts as the firelight turned the thin, cotton fabric to a gauzy whisper. She knelt and disappeared from the window frame as she lay herself down beside his son to sleep.

Bankotsu would have crept closer---perhaps even dared to step inside the darkened hut where his son and the taijiya lay sleeping---but a sudden shiver of the bamboo curtain gave him pause. The neko youkai, her red eyes glowing, shoved her head through the woven reeds to bare an impressive row of fangs at him in silent warning. She had known all along that he was there. Cats of all kinds had eyes to see the truth that lay beyond the obvious, and neko youkai particularly so. She had not cared if he had stood and watched, but she would never allow him to enter her home.

Bankotsu scowled at the cat, who wrinkled her nose at him in disdain, a faint whisper of a growl showing her determination to bar his way and keep him out. The neko did not wish to rouse her human companions, though, for so little did she think him a threat, and was content to let him wander as he will on this special night, when spirits were able to walk unhindered between the worlds.

_He's my _son. He said stubbornly, for the neko's benefit and his own. He could not speak, he had no voice left him to speak, but the cat fully understood him, for she bared her fangs again, the growl slightly louder.

_You would keep me away from him?_ He demanded, pissed as all hell and knowing there was not much he could do about it. He wished furiously for his lost Banryuu. He could have taken that damn cat's head off with one casual swipe of the giant halberd.

His fury lent a glow to his physical manifestation, highlighting him in a ghostly, flickering aura of pale blue and ethereally white light. His blue eyes burned, as did the strange, lavender tattoo that graced his forehead above the hard, cobalt gaze.

The neko's eyes glowed as well, in bloody promise, the crossed black markings on her own forehead flaring with a pallid strength. Bankotsu was surprised to see his own symbol on the great cat's fur, and the ghostly anger slowly died as he contemplated the meaning of it.

_:It is not yet time…:_

The voice was strange, somehow in his head and yet coming from all around him at the same time, as if a deeper voice spoke to him across the veiled planes of this reality and into his own subconscious. It was not the neko, who still silently snarled at him, and not any other that he could see.

_Time for what?_ He demanded irritably to that unknown voice that echoed all around him in mellow tones of irrefutability.

_:It is not yet time for you to return...not yet time for you to keep your promise…not yet time for you to accept your fate…not yet time for you to learn to live again…not yet time for you to learn to love again…not yet time for you to---:_

_I heard you the first time, damn it! _He snarled to that incessantly droning and increasingly aggravating voice, and it abruptly disappeared, leaving him alone with the cat who watched him with bloody eyes.

_FINE! _He withdrew with ill grace, the fury tightening his shoulders and stiffening his spine in stubborn denial and grim determination as the misty veils between this world and the next slowly enfolded him in growing obscurity, calling his spirit back from this world to his. _Damn you…damn you all…I will return…when it is time, I will return…_that_ I promise…_

And then all was silence, as the ghostly presence withdrew, and the neko's faint growl rumbled uneasily in the back of her throat. For Kirara believed him.

He would return, one day. And the neko knew not what then her mistress would do, for he would come to claim his son, his own…


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, etc. This story is for entertainment purposes only.

_COBALT SKIES AND TOO-BLUE EYES_

Summary: A dream haunts Sango in the eyes of her newborn son. As the veils between this world and the next are drawn back on the night of seasonal equinox, she must consider that the ghost of the father might come seeking both her and her son… ("after Naraku" canon cont., SangoXBankotsu, some InuyashaXKagome)

_WORDS_

_Toji - winter solstice, celebrated December 22nd on the Gregorian calendar_

_A/N: Winter is actually rather dry in most of Japan. I am using artistic license, and the fact that Sango's home is in the mountains to drop a blizzard on her head. Thus goes hopping the evil plot bunnies of maniacal fanime writers…_

WARNING! ADULT SITUATIONS AND ISSUES, NO ONE UNDER 17, PLEASE!

_CHAPTER THREE (TOJI)_

Sango shivered uncontrollably. The harsh winter night was piercingly cold. Her ragged breaths came out of her in short bursts of cloudy condensation as she squinted against the glaring brightness of the snowy landscape, which was lit to a ghostly brilliance by the fat, full moon that hung overhead among the cold, harshly glittering lights of a hundred, distant stars. The thin crust of the upper snow was not strong enough to hold her weight and with each new step she took, she floundered up to her thighs in the wet muck underneath. Her legs had long since lost any sensation, the numbing cold creeping up the damp fabric of her undergarments as she slogged one heavy step at a time to the distant promise of the wood pile.

She had been stupid to pile the cut timber under the scant protection of the store-house's porch. It had seemed convenient at the time---the trek hardly far from her own doorstep---but she had never expected weather like this to bog her down. Usually the snow that fell on the mountainous valley of her home was light, a foot at most, and never covering the ground for more than a few days at a time before it melted away, leaving the browned grass behind to grace the dull, winter-deadened earth once more.

Exhaustion shadowed her eyes. The sudden blizzard had come two days ago, and it looked as if clouds were gathering once more on the far horizon, their ominous shadow against the sharply glittering night sky making her shiver within her damp clothing. She sighed, grateful at least that Mikomi now slept, Kirara curled protectively around him. He had been taken sick with a high fever the past two days as the unnatural storm had howled around their tiny cot. Sango had exhausted herself in trying to bathe the fever away with soaking cloths, keeping him warm and soothing him in turns as he fretted and cried, coughs wracking his little body. She remembered each pain-filled hour as she kept steady vigilance over him, each cry as he fought off the fevers that had left her flushed and tired even as he had finally succumbed to the needed sleep of true healing.

She had been startled to hear the howling winds abate just as Mikomi had finally dropped off to sleep like one dead, the fevers finally leaving him to recover his weakened strength on his own. Sango had felt comfortable for the first time in leaving him to Kirara's guarding. Eyeing the dwindling pile of firewood, their only source of heat, she had grimly wrapped herself in as many layers as she could before venturing out to gather more from the generous pile Inuyasha had cut and stashed for her on the store-house's porch.

She had made the trek back and forth at least five times already, her arms like leaden weights as she carried two logs at a time back with her. She needed more, much more, if that storm on the horizon was any indication, and so she kept slogging, though her arms trembled, and now she carried only a single log at a time, the heavy weight dragging at her lagging steps. She coughed slightly, briefly leaning against the porch steps to rest. Her throat felt raw, and her eyes too dry and sore. She felt flushed, and numbingly cold, and she worried suddenly if she might not have caught the fevers that had plagued her poor son.

There was no help for it. She might fix herself some strengthening tea once she had completed her current task. Once she had secured the necessary tinder, she could remove the icy clothing from her skin and build up the fire so that she could warm up her hands and feet, which she could no longer feel. A chill wind blew, sweeping through the damp layers and making her shudder with the icy breath of it. She coughed again, and slogged on.

She had, at least, cut a floundering path through the snow, but her steps grew more wearied as she continued back and forth, back and forth. She couldn't believe how utterly tired she was, how strange her thoughts. She must be imagining things, for she felt as if ghostly aspirations had risen up all around her, their ghostly fingers reaching for her faint spark of life and warmth with the chilling touch of a lonely, hungering death…

Something plucked at her sleeve, and Sango yelled, flailing like a drunk, as she whirled to face them. But no one was there, and she was actually glad that her throat had been too raw to really put any volume to her shout of surprise. It had come out as more of a croak, and she felt stupid and foolish. This was the night of winter equinox, when the veils dividing the worlds pulled back their barriers and the long departed walked the lonely night. She had never quite dismissed the fireside tales of ghostly demons who hovered on the icy wind's breath of midwinter's night, ever-seeking the warmth of the living to soothe their frozen, tormented souls…

_Simple tales to scare children into good behavior…watch out or the snow demon will get you! Take care, lest the lost souls of the hungry dead take you in the night… _She thought to herself, slogging on. If she wanted to sit by that warm fireside, spinning tales and reminiscing over old legends, she needed to haul in more firewood. She peered up at the stars, and shivered as she noticed how quickly the clouds had encroached across the glittering night sky. The wind moaned in the distance, and she huddled into the sparse protection of her snow-soaked clothing as the chilling breath of it found its way to her. Something plucked again at her sleeve. It could have been the wind, which now howled mournfully around her, but it could have been something more. Blinking her dry eyes and squinting against the snow's glare, Sango spun about to confront it---to once again find nothing there.

_Damn it!_

The anger she felt at her own foolishness actually warmed her, though it made her cough again, this time in a harsh, wracking spasm that shook her to the core. Fear nipped at the back of her mind, though she tried to dismiss it as so much nonsense. She was only tired. She needed to rest…

The wind pulled at her sodden garments, and she abruptly fell, bowled over by something that had felt uncannily like a _push_ against her shoulders. She fell face-first into the snow, and sputtered in outrage at her stupid clumsiness. She floundered, trying to gain her feet, as the chilling wind rose up around her in eerie triumph, the sounds of a thousand lost souls screaming on its icy breath.

_:Warmth…life…we crave life…warmth…join us, woman…become one with us…know despair and fear and cold and ice and death and loss…pain…life lost…we crave life…your life…your warmth…join us…:_

Sango cried out on the chilling assault on her mind, sobbing aloud as she felt icy fingers plucking at her frozen skin, felt the damp clothing pressing down on her with the weight of a hundred lost souls, all hungry for her life and warmth and blood. She tried to struggle up from the snow but could not rise, for their weight bore down on her, their silent glee at her continuing struggles whispering across her mind in heady despair.

_:Lost we are…join us…cold and despair and death and pain…life lost…the cold, the chilling, icy cold…join us…:_

She knew real terror then, as her face was pressed into the snow by their growing weight. These demons and hungering, lost souls she had not believed in---but now knew in ice-held horror _were_ real, oh so very much real---they desired her death. They wanted to take the warmth from her, hungry as they were for it, leeching it away from her until she became as one of them, forever lost to the icy breath of the howling wind…

_No! Mikomi! Kirara---help me!_

She could not cry out, her breath now came shallow as they ground her into the freezing snow, pressing harder upon her, triumph in their icy breath as her frantic struggles weakened and the ice-laden wind stabbed at her lungs with a thousand knives, and she knew she could not draw breath again, that she would die, that she would _die…_

_No! Gods, please, anyone, help me!_

She cried in despair, and the rising wind of the encroaching storm-clouds closed over her, its freezing breath dropping fat flakes of ice and snow to muffle her soft sobs as the lost souls that rode the icy wind of death crowded round her, hungry, and ever hungering. They would claim her for their own, the ghosts of the night. She was so tired, so very tired, and oh so very cold…

ooOOooOOooOOoo

Kirara's head came up, her eyes glowing. Sniffing the air, she suddenly yowled her growing alarm. Leaping down from the sleeping child's bed, she flared into her larger form even as she shouldered the thick, wooden door open with brute strength alone.

She could see them, the ghostly aspirations who crowded around her mistress, who had all but disappeared beneath a thickening blanket of falling snow. The wind whipped whirling flurries into her vision, ruffling her thick fur as she snarled out her defiance of the ghostly claws that would suck Sango's soul into their own numbers, leeching away her warmth and greedily savoring it as the life dimmed within her.

Kirara rushed among them, her eyes bloody, the flames flickering along her paws as her tails lashed and she bared her fangs. She snapped at them, her heavy paws swatting right and left, deadly claws extended to the fullest.

She could do them no damage, though, for they were not of this world, but the next. They laughed and screeched, and allowed her paws to pass through them, the cold numbing her paws at even so brief a contact. She hovered over her mistress, desperately trying to find a way to beat them off Sango's chilling body. Despair made her scream and yowl, demanding aid from any who were near, though she knew not just what might answer.

Though answer he did…

ooOOooOOooOOoo

He crossed the veils with a will and a fury unseen since that last battle with Inuyasha. His giant sword, a shadowy brilliance of ghostly fire born of his own anger, blazed across the misty barrier of the worlds. The silver blaze of wrath-filled light made the ghostly aspirations who surrounded the taijiya with avid, ever-craving hunger shrink back away in real fear, for he could harm them, where the spitting neko could not.

The silver fire in his hand flashed once, twice, dissipating the ghosts too stupid to flee in terror as he struck out at them with all his might. The tattoo emblazoned on his forehead gleamed with its own silver fire, the lavender stain a darker shadow as his brilliant blue eyes spat contempt for the feeble, weak souls that still crowded around the fallen woman, their dull awareness too slow to comprehend their peril.

He made quick work of them, the shadowy halberd in his hand spinning back and forth until the last of them finally fled in terror on the icy wind. Their shrieks of loss and despair added a mournful note to the swirling winds of the rising storm as the mountainous valley was claimed in flurry-filled turmoil, the blizzard finally descending with howling vengeance.

He allowed the fire of his shadow-sword to fade, and knelt beside the limp form of the fallen woman in the deepening snow, and knew not what else he could do for her. He was as ghostly and insubstantial as those others he had just fought off, and could not lift her in his arms to carry her back to the safety and warmth of her hut. He snarled at his helplessness, for the woman would surely die if she kept lying here in the falling snow, the icy chill slowly draining the life from her flesh…

_Damn you, I returned and for nothing! For _nothing!

The crossed blades of the tattoo on his forehead blazed, and he grit his teeth as the helpless fury washed over him anew. He yelled to the haunting voice that had taunted him before, that it was not yet his time. Would they take away hers?

_Damn you! Save her! Damn you all to hell and beyond…_

ooOOooOOooOOoo

The neko's ululating cry rose above the howling winds of the snow-ridden storm. Her eyes shone like twin jewels, their light burning warmer than the embers of hearth fire, brighter than spilt heart's blood, gleaming and shining as she called on debts owed to her and hers. For her line had helped the ancient priestess, Midoriko, for untold centuries, without demanding recompense, proud to serve, one and all. They had been sacrificed, and they had suffered, but they had given freely. Now Midoriko was gone, the Sacred Jewel they had once guarded pulled from this earth, swallowed up in the same void that had taken the dark oni, her mistress's mate, and her mistress's brother.

Kirara refused to see her mistress taken as well, and by so wretched a source. Sango deserved happiness, deserved comfort, deserved litter and mate and all that was good of hearth and den. Rising her voice to the heavens, Kirara called forth that debt owed her by the gods, demanded payment as none of hers ever had.

The cross marked in black slashes on her forehead burned with a holy light, a light of deepest night, of deepest darkness, but lit with the twinkling gleam of a thousand stars. She felt her, the priestess. _Midoriko._

Kirara made her demand simple---save her, save Sango, she cared not how.

It was the gods who determined just how to turn that demand to their own purpose, and thus chose what vessel to use, as he stood so conveniently near, and as he, too, was in need---just of a different kind. They ripped the living energies of the worlds to bend them to their own use, and parted the veils for one last time for him. Drawing life out of the earth, they funneled it to the ghostly aspiration of the mercenary who stood oblivious, angry and baffled as the light suddenly flared around him, surrounding him in lines of gleaming white fire that slowly encircled him, the crossed tattoo of his forehead burning intensely with its own black light.

_:It is time…:_

The voice boomed around the three who stood in the snow, the youkai, the woman, and the man, and yet none but the youkai heard or understood its words. Kirara bowed her head in gratitude and deep reverence until the ancient miko who had once created the Shikon no Tama in her very heart withdrew, the stars in her black eyes twinkling as a smile crossed her beautiful face.

_:As you will it, little one…:_

And then she was gone.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

"_Shit_, that's cold!"

Bankotsu yelped, gingerly jumping from one bare foot to the other.

One moment, he was standing on top of the snow, his feet making no impression against it. The winds that howled and flung icy flurries on their breath stirred not so much as a wrinkle in his hakama or a tangle of inky black hair on his head, for he was not truly a part of the physical world, but a mere ghost within it. He thought he heard the neko howling out in despair, and there was a flash of light so brilliant it made him squint. There was a sudden, sharp stab of pain in the middle of his forehead, right between his eyes---a pain as sharp as when he had had that damn symbol tattooed upon his skin in a drunken dare on a lazy night long ago---and then he found himself jerking as a strange sound throbbed in his ears. Once, twice, again and again, until he realized in shock that it was his _heart_, beating for the first time in his chest, and then he was taking in a deep breath of icy air---air that he could now _feel_, as the wind tugged on the long end of his braid and flattened the draping folds of his white haori and hakama against his armor and legs.

He abruptly felt himself sinking, thigh-deep in the snow, and he wiggled his toes in wonder, his feet bare to the arch, as he had been dressed in his armor in death as he had been in life.

And _damn_ if it wasn't cold as all fucking hell right now.

The neko blinked at him, the glow in her crimson eyes fading somewhat. She wrinkled her lips at him, motioning toward the woman still half-buried in the snow. Bankotsu scratched the back of his head, and looked sour. He didn't like a damn youkai reminding him to do his damn duty. He had just suddenly found himself as solid and real and living as he had never ever expected he would again---that damn cat could give him a damn break and let him catch his bearings for one damn minute!

Except he didn't have a damn minute, for if he felt as if he were quickly turning into one long icicle, than that girl had to be feeling worse, much worse. Kneeling (and holy shit, was that _cold!), _he dug underneath the still form, grabbing at whatever sodden cloth he could, and hauled her up with him as he lurched back to his feet. Staggering through the snow, trying to squint past the furiously whirling storm, he was heartily glad that giant neko knew which way to go, and had such a convenient pair of glowing eyeballs, for they led him across the seemingly unending snow until the hut lurched up out of the whirling white oblivion like a big, dark rock.

"Fuck!" He stubbed his toe against the porch steps, and almost dropped the bundle held close in his arms. His toes had begun to numb---that was one damn way to bring them back to throbbing life. He lurched up the steps, the neko leaping ahead with far more grace to push open the sturdy, wooden door.

The hut was an oasis of heat and warmth from the howling night. Bankotsu soaked in the warmth as he stumbled across the tidy space to drop the woman on her sleeping pallet, which lay on one side of the raised dais that divided the hut in two. Wiping the soppy bangs off his forehead with an impatient hand, he knelt down beside the wet bundle and grimly started stripping off her clothes.

It seemed as if she had managed to wrap herself up with every damn article of clothing she owned. Peeling off one kimono after another, he cursed fluently as he fought frozen knots and wet wool. She had even managed to wrap her hands and arms in thick mitts that squished as he removed them. The warmth in the hut had increased, and he glanced over his shoulder to see the neko dragging another thick log to the fire, which snapped and popped as it caught on the damp wood before sullenly accepting it.

"Thanks," he muttered, finally giving up on the stupid knots and pulling a knife from his calf, sliced right through them. He cut and pulled with abandon, worried now because the woman looked blue around the lips, and far too pale, her breath too shallow with a raspy quality to it. She needed to get warm, and fast. She wasn't out of danger yet.

He peeled the last layer of sodden clothing from her, letting it fall to the wood floor just past the dais with a _splat_, as he had the others. Taking one limp, white hand in his, he gently rubbed the circulation back into her chilled flesh, and looked around for where the woman might have stashed some extra blankets.

The neko came to his aid. Transforming to her smaller size, she batted at a row of cabinets tucked under a bench built into the other side of the wall. Neat, that. Bankotsu left the naked woman on the pallet to slide back the various doors and drag out whatever he thought he might need. Everything had been arranged inside the cabinets in neat, orderly rows, but he wreaked havoc among them, discarding this and that to pull out something else he could use. He paused a moment to glance over at the small, strange wooden pen where his son lay, but the kid was sound asleep, even snoring lightly.

Bankotsu grinned. He could sleep through most anything, too. It was proof enough the little mite _was_ his son. But he didn't have time to stare down at him now, much as he would like to. The woman was shivering, her teeth chattering. Grabbing the bundle of blankets, he hurried back to the pallet.

She was light, easy to lift. He wrapped blanket after blanket around her, even tucking her feet into the bottom of the cocoon once he had rubbed the circulation back through them. Her breathing had evened out, though he still didn't like that rattling sound that kept coming out of her lungs. Her lips had lost that bluish tinge, though she was still too pale. He should wake her up, maybe, and force-feed her something hot.

He suddenly shivered himself, and realized that his own garments were soaked to the skin. It would do no good if he were to catch sick as well. With a heavy sigh, he started unbuckling straps and removing the heavy weight from off him. He was careful with his armor, it was rather expensive to replace. He took less care with his haori and hakama, though he hung them up on a convenient peg to dry. Stripped to the skin, and knowing there was no one to really see or care if he was naked or not, he sauntered over to the merrily burning hearth. Opening the three covered pots that had been left to one side of the fire, he thought that it might have been the woman's dinner, prepared earlier and only needing to be reheated.

Good. He wasn't that great at putting together a meal, though he could rough it, and had, many a time. Setting the rice to boil, he added the other two---a strange, rice-milk mixture, and some unfamiliar kind of soupy stew---to the convenient tripod arrangement above the central hearth. The fire's warmth felt good on his bare skin, and he basked for a moment in the heat before rummaging in the cabinets for another pot and the packets of tea and medicine he was most familiar with. Dumping them in with a generous hand, he set the tea to steep in the water he had boiled for the purpose. It would probably taste horrible, all mixed together like that, but it would work.

There was a slight cough from across the room. He was there, beside her pallet, in an instant. Thick lashes fluttered on her pale cheeks, and brown eyes, dazed and unfocused, blinked up at him. Her whisper was hoarse. "Mikomi…"

Mikomi? It must be the boy. He wasn't sure he liked that name.

"He's fine." His own voice was rough and hoarse.

"Tired…" She sighed, coughing again.

"Sleep," he ordered, and closing her eyes, she did.

Now that he had a few minutes, while he waited for dinner to cook, he went looking for something he might be able to wear. There was nothing but women's clothing cached in the back of the cabinets, yukata and kimono of summer weight and fabric. Ignoring them, he finally rigged a towel around his hips like a loose loincloth, pulling a blanket across his shoulders. The neko watched him with unblinking eyes by the fire as she dried her own fur, having thoroughly washed every inch of disgusting ice from her coat.

"Gah?"

Bankotsu turned to look behind him with surprise. A pair of blue eyes stared at him underneath rumpled wisps of fine black hair.

Father and son stood regarding each other for a long moment before the boy decided to bang his fist on the side of his pen and grin, babbling, "Ghahahaga."

A black brow rose, and Bankotsu shrugged. "I'm not sure what you're trying to say, kid."

"Gha!" His son's voice was imperious in his demand.

"You hungry?" Bankotsu sauntered over to kneel down beside the pen. He reached out a tentative hand, uncertain if the boy would cry if he were to touch him. He had never really been around kids all that much. He felt something stir within him, something that made his throat thicken and his eyes itch.

Calloused fingers hesitantly cupped the silky head, and Mikomi grinned at him, flashing a couple of teeth, and banged his fist against the arm above him. Bankotsu grinned back down at the boy, and touched the fist with a finger. The boy grabbed on with surprising strength, and gha-gah-gha'ed with delight.

_Gods, he can sure drool._

And what the _hell_ was that _smell?_

Bankotsu made a face, thinking he was about to find out.

Mikomi smiled.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

Mikomi spat up more than he ate, and he didn't seem to like the rice-milk mixture all that much. He kept fretting, and reaching out his arms for something that wasn't there. Bankotsu was quickly getting impatient with the stubborn kid, though it wasn't the boy's fault he didn't know what to do with him.

He glared at the youkai, who had helped him out before by batting at the right pot and dragging out clean swaddling cloths when he couldn't find them. She did everything with a haughty air that made him what to yank on those lazily flagging twin tails, though he wouldn't have survived five minutes with the kid without that stupid neko's help.

The cat sighed, as if dealing with dumb males was more than she should ever have to put up with. Tails lashing, she hopped up on the dais and stalked over to the taijiya. Sitting down on her haunches and staring at him with her red eyes, she mewed.

Bankotsu frowned, and stared down at his son, who hiccupped, his blue eyes shining with tears of frustration. His little kimono was covered in milky stains, and a piece of rice was stuck to the fat chin.

Damn.

Whipping the filthy kimono off the boy, he picked him up, tucking him under his arm like a sack of rice, and hauled him across the room to sit beside the sleeping woman. Mikomi gave a happy wail of recognition, his arms waving and his legs kicking furiously, as if he would swim through the air to his mother's side. The little mouth was pursed, sucking air like he would----Bankotsu froze.

Damn.

How the hell was he gonna do this? The kid wanted to eat, but the woman was all but passed out, and wrapped head to toe in every blanket he could find. Mikomi was crying now, rising wails of frustration for having dinner so close and yet so far. Bankotsu reached out a hand to shake the taijiya's shoulder, but she only sighed, nestling deeper into her warm cocoon.

Mikomi hollered right in his ear---a cry loud enough to wake the dead.

_Damn_ the kid had good lungs.

The woman stirred, her eyes blinking open as she heard her son's cry, and murmured, "Mikomi…"

"He's hungry." Bankotsu said, a bit grudgingly that he couldn't help his son without disturbing her.

She struggled weakly, trying to pull her hands up out of the tightly wrapped pile of blankets. Mikomi kept wailing as Bankotsu propped him sideways on one hip and used his other hand to roll the woman this way and that, tugging and pulling until she could sit up. She swayed like a drunk, the shadows under her eyes speaking eloquently of her exhaustion.

"C'mere." Bankotsu all but hauled her up against his other side as Mikomi screeched, the tears fairly flying. His left leg kept smacking the mercenary in the side, and his fists waved furiously.

"He's hungry," she whispered, her voice hoarse. She recognized the cry of her child, and how frustrated he was. She reached for him across Bankotsu's lap, her hands shaking.

"You're weak. Let's do this right," Bankotsu said roughly. He man-handled the woman and her pile of blankets onto his lap, swinging Mikomi out of the way. She stiffened for a moment, blinking up at him with confusion.

"Who…?"

"Does it matter? I'm trying to help," he growled as Mikomi screeched again.

"Mikomi…" Her eyes focused on her son, who waved frantically at her.

Rolling his eyes, he turned her so that the back of her was held solidly against his chest. She remained stiff for as long as she could, before her weakness betrayed her and she slumped against him. Her arms reached for her son, and Bankotsu plopped the impatient little monster down in her lap.

Mikomi sniffled, his face red. He snuggled against his mother, his fingers curling against the concealing blankets. The woman bent her head over her son, and shoved ineffectually at the blanket that covered her breasts. Bankotsu reached around and helpfully gave it a yank. She flushed in acute embarrassment as Mikomi grabbed hold and settled to it with a happy cry.

Quickly covering breast and babe with a draping fold of her blanket, she sighed, her eyes closing as she leaned back against him. The neko came to knead the trailing end of one blanket, her eyes warm coals against her creamy fur. Bankotsu stared down at the top of the woman's black head, seeing strands of brown among the mussed tangles, and felt an odd sensation in his chest. He tightened his arms around the pair of them, his eyes glancing down at the slight curve of her breast and the round, silky head that peeped around the concealing folds of the draping blanket.

They needed him.

The thought was startling. It was…humbling.

Damn.

"Thank you."

He shrugged half-heartedly, and Mikomi protested as the movement caused his dinner to bobble away from his grip. With a grunt, he latched back on, and the woman sighed wearily.

"He'll be done soon," she whispered, her fingers lightly combing the silky black head.

He said nothing, content just to be there, and a long silence descended between them as the fire cackled beyond and the baby made a rhythmic suckling noise, the neko's soft purr a rumbling compliment. The woman drowsily laid her head against his shoulder, too exhausted not to trust him. She would worry about it later…

She slept lightly in his arms, and Mikomi was big enough to find her other breast on his own. Grunting, the boy settled to his task, and Bankotsu did not cover him up as she had done, content to watch. He leaned his chin lightly on the top of her bent head, and smiled.

Yes, he had returned, and he thought that perhaps he might have returned for good…


	4. Interval 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, etc. This story is for entertainment purposes only.

_COBALT SKIES AND TOO-BLUE EYES_

Summary: A dream haunts Sango in the eyes of her newborn son. As the veils between this world and the next are drawn back on the night of seasonal equinox, she must consider that the ghost of the father might come seeking both her and her son… ("after Naraku" canon cont., SangoXBankotsu, some InuyashaXKagome)

_WORDS_

_Hinode - sunrise_

_A/N: It's been awhile. Thanks for your patience. This chapter is not truly a chapter, but an interval between the main ones, as the plot and certain scenes were too enticing for me not to explore. (Fate)_

WARNING! ADULT SITUATIONS AND ISSUES, NO ONE UNDER 17, PLEASE!

_INTERVAL I (HINODE)_

Had it been a dream?

Sango stirred, her eyes blearily trying to focus. She was huddled deep in a pile of blankets, which must have bunched at her waist, for there was weight there. She was curled on her side, Mikomi in her arms. He was awake, his blue eyes crinkling up at the corners as he saw that she was, too. A fist waved at her, and his little legs kicked against her encircling arm. She touched his cheek, smiling softly, happy for the moment to just lie there in the lazy warmth.

Something moved behind her. Kirara? Perhaps the neko had decided to share their pallet in her larger form. She was a firm weight of warmth at her back, and Sango turned her head to smile in grateful thanks, only to stare down at the blankets in shock.

A strong arm, a man's arm, was circling her waist. Following the arm---the tanned, firmly muscled arm---she blinked at the wide shoulder attached to it, at the slight glimpse of an angular, stubborn jaw, a rather nicely-shaped ear, and a tumble of wavy black bangs all flowing together to make her tense right up and shriek.

Except her shriek came out as more of an '_eep_,' which did nothing but make Mikomi giggle.

And shriek. "GHA!"

_That_ woke the man up, with a swiftness that made Sango more than a bit suspicious. Only the rigorously-trained ever developed instincts like that---and only the hunted slept with a knife under their pillow, and ready in their fist as they crouched, wild-eyed, over her.

"Gha-gah!" Mikomi greeted the blue-eyed man with a happy smile of recognition, frantically waving his fists at him in his 'pick me up' gesture.

Sango had been rigorously trained. Sango had been hunted. She could be just as fast, if she wanted, and could be just as quickly armed---if the damn thief hadn't had _her_ knife in his hand, the one she kept under _her_ pillow.

Still, it wasn't that hard to pluck it out of his fist. Which she did with the right even as she scooped Mikomi up in her left and slid into a controlled dive out from under the blankets, a glare in her eye and more than a few demands on her tongue. First things first, though. She snarled, "Just who the hell are _you?"_

He seemed more than a bit surprised to have her awake and glaring at him, the knife abruptly pulled from his hand and now aimed at his gut. He blinked at her, his blue eyes dark as cobalt in an evening sky. "Ah…"

He seemed at a loss for words. Sango didn't have that problem.

"I want answers, stranger, right now." Her voice could be hard as steel when she wanted. Mikomi didn't like it much. He stiffened in the protective circle of her arm, his little fists banging on her tightened hold as he let out a loud wail of discontent.

"Eh…" The man scratched the back of his neck, uncertain where to start. The mussed tangles of inky hair ended in a long, loosened braid that lay down his shoulder and back.

"I know you," Sango said, her eyes narrowed in a frown. She ignored Mikomi, who continued to howl and wiggle, his arms reaching out for the man. Sango glanced down at her son with a scowl. "What did you do to my s---"

She abruptly fell silent, having just realized that he had done something rather more important with her clothing, for she wasn't wearing any.

The strange man straightened slowly yo from his crouch, his hands held palms-open and away from his tanned, muscular frame to show that he didn't mean her any harm. He wasn't wearing anything, either.

A furious flush rose to stain the taijiya's skin. Hauling her son so that he covered her exposed breasts, she started backing away from the crazy hentai just as Kirara hopped out of the rumpled pile of abandoned blankets, mewing her displeasure.

Mikomi wailed in full agreement as Sango retreated to the other side of the hut, her eyes wide with unspoken fear. "Who _are_ you? What the hell did you do to us?"

"What the hell do you mean, what did I do to you?" The man's blue eyes were glittering with outrage, his fists on his hips as he glared back at her, blithely unconcerned with his nakedness.

Kirara mewed in a dainty demand for her attention. Sango glared at the neko in agitated distraction, and watched in bewilderment as the small neko deliberately twined herself about the man's ankles, her tails trailing as she wound a figure-eight between his legs.

The man scowled down at his feet with irritation. "Stupid cat."

Sitting back on her haunches between his legs, her point made, Kirara only purred.

"Kirara? What---I don't understand." Sango was confused by the neko's trusting behavior, but she let the knife drop a few inches from its aggressive position in her white-knuckled hand.

"Gha-gah! Gha-gah!" Mikomi sniffled into the sudden silence, his arms waving frantically as he reached out for the black-haired man, who studied Sango's wary stance with a shake of his head and a sudden gamine grin that lit up his blue eyes with a gleam.

"You look a little cold, taijiya. You should cover up." He flashed her a toothy grin, folding his arms across his chest and casually leaning against the wall behind him. "Not that I mind the view…"

Sango looked down at herself, and saw that her nipples had pebbled in the faint chill coming up from the wooden floor away from the central hearth. Flushing with angry embarrassment, she snapped back over Mikomi's growing distress, "It might help if you told me what you did with my clothes, hentai!"

"Hentai, huh?" Another grin flashed her way as he casually tugged a white kimono off of the peg beside him and tossed it in her direction. Sango was quick to catch it out of the air across her bent elbow, keeping the knife still in hand, though his next pointed stab made her flush with fury. "I'm not the first hentai you've known, slayer."

He said it was such biting bitterness, his blue eyes dark and hard as he casually pulled a pair of white hakama off the same peg he had pulled the kimono he'd tossed her way.

There was a flash of raw pain in Sango's eyes, and she whispered, "How _dare_ you."

"Cover up, taijiya. We need to talk." The man looked tired. His mouth quirked up in one corner with sardonic derision as Sango shook with suppressed fury. Slamming the knife into the wall within close reach, Sango shrugged into the white and blue kimono, which draped too wide across her arms and shoulders, the bottom coming only to her knees. It must be his haori, then, and not one of her own kimono. That fact made her even more furious, and she tried to soothe her fretful son with short patience that did not fool Mikomi in the least. He bawled, his face going red, as she tried to jiggle him on her hip, her lips a thin, white line as she tried to force her anger down so she could comfort her son.

"Gods, woman. I don't know how you think you're going to quiet him down like that." The man strode across the room, tugging the white hakama up his narrow hips as he reached for her son.

Sango hissed, whirling away from him and pulling the knife free from the wall behind her with a single, fluid motion. "Back away from my son, ass hole."

He stopped, scowling, as she tightened her hand on the bared blade and Mikomi howled.

"You can't keep him from me, woman. He's my _son_." He growled, eyes dark with a fury growing as great as her own.

Sango froze, her brown eyes wide as sudden comprehension smacked her in the face. _"Bankotsu."_

"Huh. Glad you finally recognized me, slayer." He crossed his arms again, smirking sardonically as she trembled in growing agitation.

"No. It can't be." She backed away from him, blindly retreating from a truth too painful for her to deny. _Oh, gods---Miroku! No…gods, please, no…it can't be true…oh, gods…Miroku!_

"How…" Her voice broke on a sudden sob, her eyes closing as she clutched her sniffling son to her chest.

"How?" He raised a black brow at her direction, though there was a flash of pain in his eyes that she did not see.

"Oh, gods. _Why?"_ Sango sank to her knees on the floor, the knife clattering forgotten from her hand. She buried her head against her son's, rocked by the pain of bitter truth. Mikomi did not know why she held him so tightly, or why his mother was shuddering with suppressed sobs as the tears ran silently down her cheeks and fell onto his little head with a baptism of raw pain and deep regret.

Ice clutched the mercenary's heart, and his cobalt eyes were hard with denied emotion as he ignored his own pain to suppress hers. His voice was flat, without emotion, as he said, "Don't blame yourself for what is, woman. You'll weaken yourself, and lose what little strength you've gained since the storm."

Sango shook her head, trying to ignore him, and his intrusion into a broken reality she did not want to face. It was Mikomi, however, who once again drew her from her apathy, choking as he was on his own dismayed sobs. With slow motions, her eyes dull, she slowly stood, feeling as if she was wading through glue and standing outside herself as she once again faced the man of her cringing nightmares.

He was as vibrant and hard as ever, his strength worn with a careless arrogance that could still make her shiver in tensed reserve, for he had the careless grace of the waiting predator. He was like a stalking panther, one barely hidden by a boyishly charming manner that had disarmed many a lesser foe who underestimated the predator lying in wait beneath that cocky little smile. He wasn't smiling now---in fact, his usually mobile face was closed, his expression stiff as he held out his arms for his son.

_His son._

Sango trembled, wondering how she might not let him claim Mikomi. Maybe if she were to deny the truth, than perhaps, perhaps it might just go away…

But Mikomi was smiling now, his hands waving in delight as he sniffled. "Gha-gah!"

Her heart felt as heavy as a stone as Sango numbly handed him the child, knowing that she was abandoning Miroku for the truth of what was. Her hands shook, and she felt oddly empty as Bankotsu cradled her son to him with casual familiarity, his eyes, so much like Mikomi's own, softening a bit as he poked the fat little belly to make the boy giggle.

"C'mon, brat. You smell like you need a changing." Bankotsu actually made a face at the baby, who cooed and laughed and waved his little fists. Sango sank woodenly to a nearby stool as she silently watched the callous mercenary who had killed over a thousand demons and a thousand men now used those same hands to change her son's clout for another, the movements deft and assured. She felt separated from reality, her mind numb and stupid.

Kirara meowed at her feet, jumping up on the taijiya's lap when she didn't respond fast enough. Purring loudly to reassure the troubled woman, the neko kneaded her lap, her claws digging a little too deep through the light silk of Bankotsu's haori and making Sango start in surprise at the decided prick against her thighs.

Bankotsu heard her gasp, and his mouth quirked up in one corner as he wrapped Mikomi up in a small, light-blue kimono with practiced ease. "You've been out of it for a while, taijiya."

Sango blinked, her fingers absently combing through Kirara's fur as the neko settled into her lap. She had to swallow the dryness from her throat as she stumbled out hoarsely, "Wha-What do you mean?"

"I mean it's been four days since I found you passed out in the snow." He tickled a foot, and Mikomi squealed with delight.

"Four…" Sango could only blink, her mind too numbed with too many surprises. "You…you found me?"

"Yeah." He didn't elaborate, though the little neko turned an unblinkingly red-eyed stare his way.

"H-How?" She whispered, a wealth of unasked questions in that single phrase.

He shrugged, not wanting to elaborate on that either. One minute, he'd been cursing the gods with his inability to do anything to help her, and the next his curses had been answered, and he'd been sinking up to his ass in the snow. With a convulsive shudder, he picked the boy up and turned a blue stare on her as bland as Kirara's.

"Hungry? There's some bad miso I made up last night, or I can boil an egg over rice. I can't fuck that dish up too much."

Sango didn't know what to say, so she only stared at him. He'd been here, what, four days? Four whole days to become intimately familiar with the small, tidy hut and where everything was kept. Four whole days to have learned how to care for her son---if he didn't already know how, for she knew nothing of him, whether he came from a big family or whether he had ever had the tending of children---and have to care for her. She trembled at the thought, for there was many things a person had to do in four days of somnolence…

"I hope you have more food stored up somewhere, because we've gone through most of what's here in the house." His voice grew muffled as he bent over the woodpile, dragging up two logs under one arm as if they weighed nothing, Mikomi casually perched on his other hip.

"Uh…yes. I have additional provisions in the store-house across the way, where the wood is kept." Sango said with some distraction, watching her son as he gah-gha'ed and smacked his fists into the mercenary's taut stomach. Muscles ripples across the broad chest, his right arm and shoulder tightening as he dropped the wood with little ceremony beside the banked coals of the hearth.

"What stupidity made you store everything _there_ when blizzards are dropping six feet of snow or more on the village?" His voice was caustic as he shoved tinder in the pit, coaxing the embers to catch and grow.

Sango stiffened at the accusation in his tone, and she snapped, "The snow is unusual for this area."

Mikomi made a noise of distress at her sharp tone, and Bankotsu cocked a blue eye at her from over his shoulder in mordant appraisal. The mercenary's eyes were slightly slanted, an almost almond tilt to them---something Sango had noted and dismissed in her son, anxious to see more of her beloved houshi in the child's round face.

It was yet another heart-stabbing testament that Mikomi was not Miroku's son, but Bankotsu's. She dropped her eyes from his, her hands buried in Kirara's fur as she closed her eyes.

Mikomi continued to fret as Bankotsu made quick work of the fire, swinging a pot of drowning rice to boil over the central tripod arrangement. Her son's particular cries drew Sango back and she slipped from the stool with weary exhaustion, Kirara jumping from her lap with a lash of her twin tails.

"He's hungry." She said, holding her arms out as Bankotsu looked up at her from under an inky crop of tousled tangles. His single braid, silky wisps slithering from the loosened twine, hung down his back to his haunches where he crouched beside the hearth. Mikomi let out a glad cry of recognition, waving his arms at her.

With a quirk of his hard lips, a look Sango was becoming too familiar with, he handed the fussy kid over. Cradling her son, Sango walked with great dignity to the other side of the small hut. Climbing the dais, she sank to the abandoned pile of blankets on her pallet and deliberately turned her back on the mercenary. Dragging a blanket around her shoulders, she loosened the white haori just enough to slip her hungry son to the breast. She sighed as Mikomi settled down to business, and kept her head bowed over her son, silent tears creeping down her cheeks where the mercenary could not see and mock her for them.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

Bankotsu watched her, his eyes dark, the pain there for him too, for she had done it again. She was ashamed of him, that he was the father of her son and not that perverted baka of a Buddhist monk. He remember too well that flush of shame on her cheeks, that start of pain in her deep brown eyes. He hated it, and for a moment, he hated her for even feeling it, though he hated himself more for the causing of it.

Still, the woman had to face reality, no matter what pain it caused her. Bankostu had always been one to deal with reality as it was, no matter how grim. He was never one to waste much time on yearning after something he could not have, but he had a sudden wish that that taijiya had never met that stupid monk, that she had never been a member of the inu-gumi, that she had been the simple peasant-wench he'd taken her for that night in the forest, that she might be free of her regret and her pain that it was he who was little Mikomi's father and not that fucking pervert…

Might as well wish for the moon, or for rice to boil faster in a pot watched too impatiently, or too intently, for he didn't want to look at her bowed form, hiding herself from him as if she could pretend he was not there and turn her back on the truth.

He stirred the rice with a savage hand, causing water to slosh over the side of the pot to land in the fire, which protested with hissing complaint. The small sounds his son made while nursing were not soothing as they had been before, mainly because it signified her pointed withdrawal from him. Why the hell he even cared what she thought or felt about him, when what was truly important---or should be---was his son, and only his son, had Bankotsu's jaw hardening in stubborn anger. He had hoped---what? That she would welcome him with open arms, glad that he had saved her, that he was a living man once more? That she might be able to embrace him, a stranger, and an enemy, and welcome him into her home and heart with no qualm or question?

He was a bigger fool than he had ever known to have believed any of that might have been remotely possible. His mouth quirked in self-derision, an expression he was wearing far too often of late. Damn it all to fucking hell.

His son was what was important, here, not him, not her, and not what might have been if they had been other than who they were. Mikomi was the one who had drawn him back---or so he told himself, that it had been his son, not her, who called him through the barriers that divided this world from that of the dead---and it was Mikomi who truly needed him, not her.

Very well. Then he would do what he must, for Mikomi's sake, and damned be her if she tried to stop him...


	5. Interval 2

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, etc. This story is for entertainment purposes only.

_COBALT SKIES AND TOO-BLUE EYES_

Summary: A dream haunts Sango in the eyes of her newborn son. As the veils between this world and the next are drawn back on the night of seasonal equinox, she must consider that the ghost of the father might come seeking both her and her son… ("after Naraku" canon cont., SangoXBankotsu, some InuyashaXKagome)

_WORDS_

_Mahiru - midday_

_A/N: This chapter is a little choppy, and I deliberated too long over rewriting the whole thing over. I finally gave up the goat and just decided to post as is. (Fate)_

WARNING! ADULT SITUATIONS AND ISSUES, NO ONE UNDER 17, PLEASE!

_INTERVAL II (MAHIRU)_

The snow stayed away for two days. Her cough and the fevers and weakness that accompanied it stayed away for one.

At least it had been long enough for her to start some laundry.

Too bad he was the one having to finish it, under her scowling instruction and his scowling irritation with her scowling instruction.

Good thing she had a cold. It kept cutting her off at just exactly the right moment---when her owe irritation would rise, and she'd try to snap something sharp at him, and only end up coughing, the tears fairly running down her cheeks as her chest exploded in angry fits.

He would have offered to pound her back or brew up some steam to help clear her head, but the snooty wench had already spurned any help of his. "Don't touch me!," she had almost screamed at him, though it had come out as a hoarse croak after that first fit had nearly doubled her over.

He had pulled his hands back as if burned, and not touched her again, though she was weak as a newborn kitten. Kirara had been the one to help her to the necessary facilities---now hidden by a worn blanket he had hung without comment across one corner of the too-small space they shared. She hadn't even thanked him for that small courtesy, the ungrateful wretch. Well, now she was getting her just deserts. Let her cough her lungs out. As long as she had the strength to hug Mikomi to her chest for his feeding than he didn't give a rat's damn if she up and keeled over!

Well, that was a lie. A rather big one, actually. Still, she was working his last damn nerve. It had been so much easier when she had been passed out and feverish…

The sudden silence in the close hut had him jerking his head up, a brow lifted in sarcastic inquiry. Usually the wench would have been saying something scathing by now---about how he was scrubbing her damn yukata too hard, or how he was hanging them up all wrong to dry, that they would be more wrinkled than if he just wadded them up in a ball and threw them in a corner.

Stupid laundry. He was a mercenary, damn it, not a washwoman!

He scowled at her. She was slumped, her head on her knees, not looking in his direction. Mikomi was sound asleep in his little pen, snoring lightly.

"What? You have nothing to say?" His voice was biting as he rested his hands on the sides of the narrow wash tub, a blanket ballooning lazily across the sudsy surface. There was wet fabric draped everywhere there was a free surface, and the air was both damp and hot from the fire set blazing to help dry them. He didn't want to think about how much more laundry waited his tender ministrations---he had used up most of the blankets and clothing in the small hut taking care of Sango's damn ass those past four days, and she had insisted in that annoyingly snide way of hers that everything had to be boiled and cleaned lest Mikomi become sick again.

She had to use _that_ argument to get him to do it, the sadistic wench. He would do anything for Mikomi---even laundry.

Gah.

"Hello?!" His voice was particularly acidic, hoping to goad a response, but the girl remained bowed over her knees.

Mikomi snoozed on, oblivious.

So did she, apparently.

Scowling, Bankotsu drummed his fingers on the wooden rim of the tub and stared at her. Nothing.

_Must be nice to sit back and relax while I do all the work! _

Annoyed as all hell---for laundry was women's work, and here he was, _doing_ it, while she was, well, _not_----he finally swept to his feet and stomped over to shake her lazy ass up. He half-expected her to wake up as he neared her and shy away, if not hit him with an angry growl about how he should keep his distance, hentai! But her head stayed bent, and he frowned.

His right hand reached out to lightly touch her on the shoulder, his voice a lot more gentle than he had intended. "Hey."

Still no response. He shook her lightly, and jumped back as she fell over sideways, her black hair spilling across the blankets she had huddled under. Her breath was raspy, and he made a face as he crouched beside her, his hand automatically pushing her long bangs aside to check her forehead. Feeling the familiar heat of fever under his calloused fingers, he grimaced.

"Well, crap."

ooOOooOOooOOoo

It was a whole hell of a lot quieter in the hut now that her mouth wasn't going so damn much. Mikomi made up for it, though, hollering his head off as his mother basically ignored him. Bankotsu had become an old hand at propping both baby and mom in his lap, though, and Mikomi settled down once lunch was made available. The brat might have been fighting off his own illness, because he slept like the dead once his hunger was satisfied. Bankotsu kept checking on the kid with a nagging worry about it, but the little monster never developed the fever or chill his mother had, which was one small relief.

Caring for the wench was sure getting tiresome, though. But he was a man, so he rose to the challenge, and actually felt a whole hell of a lot better without her sarcastic mouth annoying the shit out of him. He got a lot more done without her nagging him about it, and was actually taking some smug satisfaction in the fact that he _could_ do it, without her snide little comments.

After finishing the laundry in half the time she would have used, he built up the fire and made sure both kid and mother were well covered before venturing out of the hut. It felt great to be outside, though the chill in the air was enough to make him glare at the scuttling clouds in the distance. More snow was coming---he could feel it, and the stuff on the ground hadn't melted much in the meantime. Tromping across the buried path, he cursed the idiocy of an arrogant taijiya for storing all her provisions in a building so close and yet so far away in terms of need.

Grunting with effort, he managed to wrestle the door open through the snow that buried it in three feet of annoying obstruction. Eying the neatly stacked shelves, he shrugged. Grabbing up this and that, he started hauling. And hauling. And hauling. He had a rather sizeable pile going inside the hut by the time he quit. He checked on both of his patients, but there was no change in either kid or wench. Damn, they could sure sleep. He paused to stoke up the fire, and eyed the depleted woodpile with sour resignation.

Back out he went, this time to haul logs. At least there were plenty cut and stacked on the storehouse's porch. He was sweating lightly, which chilled him in the icy wind by the time he finished, but the exercise had worked out some of his frustrations with the situation he found himself in and mellowed his mood somewhat.

Securing both storehouse and hut against the renewed threat of a blizzard, for the gathering clouds were ominous, he regarded the drying laundry and lumpy pile in the center of the room with something even akin to cheerfulness. Mikomi was up by then, babbling and drooling and amusing himself with a round brass ring he continually tried to stick in his mouth. It wouldn't fit, but the boy seemed happy enough to munch on it. The girl stirred as he checked her temperature, but the fever seemed less, and she only rolled over, huddling further into the blankets piled around her. Sleep was probably best for her right now, and so he left her alone.

His mood stayed rather cheerful as he worked his way through the giant pile of supplies he had hauled from the storehouse. Opening various parcels, he stowed them here and there according to need. Sango would probably holler about where he stashed her shit---she was so damn picky about it---but while she was facedown in the blankets she couldn't say too damn much. He tossed some rice to boil over the fire and even dared to stir in a mix of dried vegetables and meat, seasoning the whole with a heavy hand from things that smelled good. He added a bit of dried herbs to a smaller kettle to steep---something to help the girl if she deigned to drink it. He actually had more working knowledge of healing salves than cooking herbs.

Mikomi needed changing by then, and required some play-time and attention. He managed to feed the little monster some of the gooey rice mixture Sango had previously made up, before her coughing fits had taken her back to bed. He would have to ask her how to make more of it. Mikomi's bottomless pit of a stomach required quite a haul to fill up.

"I don't know why I bother feeding you, brat. You're only going to shit it out." Bankotsu mock-scowled at the boy, who screeched a laugh and waved his arms. Small bits of rice were stuck to his fat cheeks and tummy. Bankotsu found it easier to feed the messy kid naked rather than dirty up another of his little kimonos.

He didn't want to do any more laundry than he had to, thank you!

The fire cackled to itself as he removed the pot to scoop up his own dinner. He didn't bother using a separate bowl---he hated washing dishes as much as he hated washing clothes---and fed himself between feeding bits to the kid. He fed Mikomi some of the softer portions of his own dinner, though the boy made faces and spat most of it out. He seemed to like something green and lumpy he had added, and sucked the juice out of the small cabbages before gumming them to death and swallowing.

Kirara finally emerged from Sango's blankets and deigned to try a bowl of his rice-stew. She sniffed and made a rude noise but was hungry enough to eat it anyway. Bankotsu only grinned as he picked Mikomi up to burp the little bastard. After a few healthy belches the kid finally settled to sleep, slumping himself across his father's shoulder like a warm, boneless lump.

Transferring the child back to his pen, Bankotsu decided the tea had seeped enough for him to try and get the girl to choke some down. His timing was good, for she awakened as he approached, coughing weakly as he helped her to sit up. She tried to glare at him, but the effort was too wearying, and she finally just slumped against him much as their son had earlier. He held the cup steady as she drank the noxious medicine. She coughed again, in between sips, and shuddered as he forced her to finish all of it.

"Mikomi?" She whispered, her voice hoarse and her eyes shadowed.

"Fine," he replied, waiting for a sharp remark.

"Thank you." She slumped back down to her blankets, her eyes already closing again.

He stared down at her, shaking his head. The woman was as confusing as anyone he had ever met. Shrugging, he got back up to thin out some of his rice-stew into a soup. She would need food to keep up her strength.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

She choked on the soup.

He helpfully pounded her back, like he did for Mikomi, and she started trying to hack up a lung. His hand gentled, making soothing circles on her back like he had learned with the boy, hoping to ease the spasming muscles. She made a choked noise, as if in protest, and kept hacking.

He got another cup of tea, this one with honey in it, hoping to cut the bitter taste of the herbs. The honey actually seemed to soothe her sore throat, for her coughing finally stopped.

She looked at him, confusion in her dark eyes. He absently brushed a black tangle from her cheek and she flinched, as if struck. His lips twisted into the sardonic derision he was becoming too familiar with as of late.

"Sleep, taijiya," he ordered, getting up to leave. He felt her haunted eyes on him as he went back to the fire and restlessly poked the sullen tinder. The wind, which had risen once night descended, howled around the eaves of the small house. They sat like that for some time, the only noise the howling of the wind and Mikomi's light snores. He finally turned to look back at her, and found her eyes had closed and she slept, Kirara curled at her shoulder.

"Huh."

ooOOooOOooOOoo

She never woke when Mikomi finally refused the gooey rice stuff and hollered for his mother. Being an old hand at propping her dead weight up, Bankotsu nestled mother and child in his lap as he leaned his wide shoulders against the wooden wall for support. He could feel the chill of the raging blizzard through the snug boards, and hooked an extra blanket to bundle around the pair, staring down as his son suckled greedily.

Her boobs were bigger.

He kind of envied the boy, he looked to be enjoying himself so damn much.

He sighed, closing his eyes as he leaned his head back against the wall.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

Her fever spiked later that night, and he bathed her skin with cool water, Kirara helpfully bringing him extra rags. Mikomi grew feverish, and sniffled and whined until Bankotsu wanted to wring both their necks for all the trouble they were giving him. He was so damn tired he wanted to fall over and sleep for a thousand years. Death would be preferable to this.

Not true. _Definitely_ not true. Sure, it sucked, but hell, at least he was useful and needed here. They both needed him, desperately, and boy did it feel good.

Too good.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

He slept curled around them, as he had when she had been so sick before. It felt so right, to have her nestled against him, Mokimi in her arms and Kirara at their feet.

She pricked the bottom of his foot, stretching out a small paw.

_Stupid cat._

Kirara only purred.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

The morning brought no surcease from the blizzard, which raged and howled around the snug little cot as Bankotsu battled the laundry, Mikomi battled for breakfast, and Sango battled for her life. The fever finally broke, but she was as limp as a rag and slept like the dead. Bankotsu grew worried over her lethargy, but awareness slowly returned, until she was able to sit up and eat a little egg-dropped soup he hadn't bungled too badly.

She protested weakly when he helped her to the necessary. Mikomi laughed, delighted that his mother was finally up and about, if somewhat shakily. Her face went through several interesting shades of both white and red as the strain of hobbling to the necessary with his help and needing that help took its toll. He left her alone to handle her business but was there to help her back to her pallet as soon as she was done. She wouldn't look at him, and she wouldn't say a word as he silently bundled her back up in the abandoned blankets.

She broke into chills again, and yet another fever, and the next time she needed to go he merely picked her up over her own muffled protests. She was light, too light, and far too pale. She also smelled of stale sweat, and he only won the battle that ensued over his stripping and bathing her because she was too damn weak to do too much about it at that point.

She had pretty feet. He liked her toes, especially how her second toe stuck out a little further than her big toe. She also had bony wrists, and her collarbone and her ribs were far too prominent. Her hips were narrow, but her ass was still as firm as a boy's and saucy to boot. Her skin was smooth and creamy with nary a birthmark or mole to mar it. Her hands were small in his but just as calloused at the fingertips, if smoother on the palm. She had too much hair, no matter how long and silky. Washing it was a real bitch.

He toweled her dry, wrapping her in fresh blankets with another one to keep her damp hair off her head. She suffered his ministrations in stony silence, her cheeks red and her eyes opaque. He carried her back to the pallet, and gently laid her down.

She turned her back on him then, refusing to meet his eyes, and he wanted to kick her in the head for being so ungrateful and so damn embarrassed about it. What was it that made her so ashamed of him, and of herself _with_ him?

Damn her to hell and beyond. She needed him, damn it, and one day she would fucking well see that…

ooOOooOOooOOoo

He slept on the floor that night, by the fire. She refused vehemently when he made a motion to join her and Mikomi on her pallet. Kirara growled as he silently turned on his heel, picking up a couple of blankets to cushion the hard wood, and later joined him as he lay on his back. Climbing on his chest, she curled herself into a little ball and purred herself to sleep.

_Stupid cat._

ooOOooOOooOOoo

The fevers returned the next night with a vengeance. Bankotsu was beside himself keeping Mikomi occupied and happy while he took care of his mother, who baldly looked like death warmed over. She tossed restlessly in her sleep, muttering miseries that stung his heart raw even as he ignored them. She had truly loved that stupid hentai monk, and she kept calling out to him, making the mercenary grit his teeth and snarl over the injustices of fate.

He refused to give up on her, and his stubborn will proved stronger than the fevers and chills that continued to grip her wearied body in the following weeks. He battled the silent ghosts of both her sadness and heartache with grim silence, and when she would wake, he quieted her various "I'm sorry's" and "thank you's" with an indifferent shrug or sardonic quirk of his lips or brow.

She grew quiet, her thoughts turned inward, and watched him under hooded eyes as he played or fussed with Mikomi. He was rather pleased when the fevers claimed her again, for she no longer called out to that stupid Miroku idiot in her fevered dreams.

In fact, she never mentioned him again, in either waking or sleepy murmurs, and perhaps that was worse, for her heartache remained buried behind tightly-pressed white lips and hollow brown eyes.

Bankotsu skirted the subject as handily as she, but he knew that one day he would have to confront it. Now was not yet the time, however, for the cough stayed with her, the fevers returning occasionally to sap what little strength she had managed to gain between bouts. Recovery was long and slow, and she needed his strength when hers was spent for even the most basic of necessities, and although he knew she hated it, she said nothing, and neither did he.

Silence became a defense and a habit for both of them, for both of their souls were raw and smarting from the mere presence of the other who caused them such pain. Neither knew how much, for they carefully avoided speaking or thinking about it, their love and attention taken up with their son, who continually surprised them as he grew, learning something new almost every day.

Bankotsu saw Sango truly smile for the first time when Mikomi spoke his first word, and it was her name. Or something like it. 'Okaa-san' was a little too much for a little mite to handle, but he burbled "Kaah" and waved his hands at her with a four-toothed grin. She laughed with unfeigned joy and delight, and picked him up in a hug to spin about the room, laughing and happy for the first time in far too long. Bankotsu was stunned by how her brown eyes danced, her smile almost blinding in its brilliancy. He felt a stab in his heart that such pure joy and love could never be for him, and all because of the shadows of a mistake and a hentai ghost, and his expression grew stony at the bitter thought.

Her eyes darkened, taking in his hard expression, and her delight at her son's accomplishment dimmed a bit as the mercenary abruptly got up and left the room with no excuse. Hauling logs was always a good way to work out some of his frustration, and Bankotsu eventually returned like a petulant child, refusing to say anything about it. She took his moodiness for envy, that Mikomi's first word should be for her, and not him, and said nothing.

Silence had become a habit by then.


	6. Interval 3

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, etc. This story is for entertainment purposes only.

_COBALT SKIES AND TOO-BLUE EYES_

Summary: A dream haunts Sango in the eyes of her newborn son. As the veils between this world and the next are drawn back on the night of seasonal equinox, she must consider that the ghost of the father might come seeking both her and her son… ("after Naraku" canon cont., SangoXBankotsu, some InuyashaXKagome)

_WORDS_

_Hinoiri - sunset_

_A/N: I have always loved the saying, "Never let the sun go down on your anger." It was what sparked this "interval" section of the story, and the various titles for these three "chapters." One of my favorite aspects of Sango and Bankotsu's relationship is that they are both fighters, and can be rather opinionated and strong-willed (not to mention stubborn!) about it. Mule, anyone? LOL. (Fate)_

WARNING! ADULT SITUATIONS AND ISSUES, NO ONE UNDER 17, PLEASE!

_INTERVAL III (HINOIRI)_

The winter was a hard one, for all of them. Snow continued to bury the lonely village for the next two months. The woodpile which had seemed so large to Sango at winter's start had dwindled so much that Bankotsu finally took the small axe out and chopped down more. She was grateful, then, to have him, for she didn't know if she would have had the strength to do it. She barely had the strength to do the minor tasks around the hut and tend Mikomi over those months, for the cough and chills and fevers would strike her off and on, though they were never as fierce as those first few times.

Mikomi suffered a cold now and then, grew fussy with his emerging teeth, and once took a tummy ache that made his howl for days as his clouts came away loose and full. Bankotsu remained disgustingly healthy and took everything in stride with a surprising show of stoicism. Sango would never have believed such a brat of a man would ever have the patience to endure taking care of a sick child, let alone a sick woman, but the man's stolid strength continued to startle her.

She didn't like him, she couldn't let herself. He had betrayed her memory and love for Miroku---though that wasn't completely true, for it had been she as well who had betrayed the houshi. She should have known, damn it, and done something, anything, to stop it all from even happening that midsummer's night…

She couldn't think about it---that way lay stinging tears and burning eyes and a deep aching in her chest as her heart tightened in knowledge at the betrayal of her dearest love. She ignored it, as she had learned to ignore much, for Bankotsu's presence was so overwhelming, so damn compelling, and she couldn't allow herself to think along those lines either, for heartache lay there too, and betrayal anew of the houshi's memory.

Miroku deserved that much from her, at least.

She buried her mixed up feelings in Mikomi, whom she could love without regret or worrying about betraying Miroku's ghost, because he was himself, his sweet little self. He was a holy terror now that he was crawling, and getting into everything not nailed down or up out of his reach. He was quick, too, and she had had to snatch him up once or twice from nearly tumbling head-first into the fire. Her heart had been in her mouth both times, and he had cried because she had held him so tightly to her, the fear etching icy images too horrible to contemplate on her mind's eye.

Bankotsu had been rather nonchalant about it. "Kids bounce," he said, airily dismissing her fright. Sango wanted to shout that he was an idiot, that Mikomi could have hurt himself badly, or even been killed, but she kept her anger tightly lidded, not wishing to break the fragile peace that had settled between them. It was as thin as an eggshell, and Bankotsu seemed less and less to care if he stepped all over it, the jerk. They were closed up in this one tiny hut, and for Mikomi's sake, she must keep the peace with his insensitive boor of a father.

Even if it killed her.

"You coddle him too much," Bankotsu had gone on to criticize. Her eyes had blazed, her lips thinning. "How can he ever grow up to become a man if you baby him so damn much?"

_A man like you?_ She wanted to snap at him, the unfeeling clod. She kept silent, and coddled her son with marked disdain. Wiping Mikomi's tears with the edge of her sleeve, she turned her back on the jerk, and soothed her son and her own frayed nerves in the doing.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

Her own weakness often betrayed her, and she hated it, and the helplessness of it. He was often there without comment to take over a task she was too weary to finish, or to casually pick her up like he would little Mikomi when she stumbled. She was constantly pushing her strength to the limits, hating every damn minute of weakness. She was a warrior, damn it, a taijiya, and she didn't need a man to do what she had always done.

Except she did. Damn it all, anyway!

Worse than her continual lethargy was the dry cough that would start out as a little tickle and then erupt into shivering chills or sweaty fevers. She hated that most of all, and worried when the illness would not abate. She must have been far weaker than she thought, and kami knew she had never gained back the weight she had lost from those first few times when she had been wracked by violent fevers and too close to death. Bankotsu's silence on the matter got on her nerves, and he had come to know her so well that he could tell at a glance if she was growing light-headed and if that stupid cough was getting worse. He would eye her then, and she would glare at him, but neither would say anything, not wanting to give quarter and break the fragile peace established between them because of their enforced proximity. It always ended the same way, anyway---her flat on her back too weak to move and he caring for her in ways too intimate for her not to want to die in shame over.

She knew that he slept with them on her pallet when she was too sick to protest it. She said nothing, pretending not to know even as he pretended not to know she knew. He would silently wrap himself by the fire on the nights she wasn't taken with fever, and she never voiced the lonely, abandoned feeling she had when he did. The pallet felt empty without his warmth at her back, and she felt that _that_ was a worse betrayal of Miroku's memory than any other…

ooOOooOOooOOoo

The winter eventually spent itself, and her energy slowly returned. The dry cough that had continually haunted her finally withdrew altogether, and she no longer succumbed to the weary resignation the continual fevers had produced. She still tired easily, and her appetite remained low. Bankotsu was always nagging her to eat more, and now that she was doing the cooking, she was actually able to choke more down just to keep the uneasy peace between them. He wasn't trying all that hard, though, to keep that peace, and her nerves were getting more frayed each passing day. He seemed to know just how to press her buttons, and he stomped all over her stiff pride with the callousness of a trampling bear youkai.

She sometimes wondered if it might be deliberate---his goading. He watched her sometimes, with a measuring expression in those twilit blue eyes---though it would abruptly vanish if she stared back or raised a questioning brow. He was cool then, pretending not to notice anything was amiss, as she pretended nothing was wrong either.

They had gotten rather good at that.

Except now he seemed not to care. Maybe it was being confined too long and too closely in the same small space. Maybe it was two strong personalities carefully trying not to get on one another's nerves. Maybe it was the fact that they saw only each other, and Mikomi, day in and day out. Mikomi was a delight, to be sure, but he could only distract them so much. Sango even started resenting it when Bankotsu usurped the boy's attention, though she also felt it was good that the mercenary showed so much caring for the boy. She found herself actually softening toward the man, for she could see that he loved Mikomi as much as she, and she felt oddly left out when father and son ignored her for each other.

She felt as if that were a betrayal of Miroku as well, and hardened her treacherous heart. She would learn to get along with Bankotsu because she _had_ to. Mikomi needed his father in his life; it would be too cruel for her to deny her son that love. She treasured the memory of her father, and was actually glad that Mikomi would have that same relationship as well. She would endure the mercenary for her son's sake, and none other.

Except---she still missed him at night. Keenly. And that knowledge hurt and rested heavily on her heart. She was such a hypocrite. Miroku had loved her, had sacrificed his life to end the nightmare of Naraku, and she had betrayed him in every way possible. She was such a traitor to that love, for she sometimes caught herself looking at the mercenary as a woman looks at a man---with desire---and she would burn with shame for it, and deliberately try to ignore the blue-eyed devil who could turn her idle thoughts so easily.

It wasn't his fault. True, he was rather nonchalant about revealing his body. He seemed to revel in his nakedness as much as Mikomi, and flaunted his muscles too damn much. He never felt the need to wear a shirt, claiming the fire kept warm for her cough made him too hot. He was as finicky as she in keeping himself clean, and never bothered with hauling the wash tub behind the blanket hung up around the chamber pot in the corner as she carefully did. Not that he hadn't seen her naked, too much so, actually, for her relative peace of mind. But _still!_ The man could at least have the decency to bathe himself in some kind of privacy, scant as it was!

He had caught her looking at him, and sometimes she wondered if he deliberately flaunted himself before her, though that would be ludicrous. He had no interest in her, only her son---he had made _that_ abundantly clear. There was tension between them, of course, for they were confined to a small space for too long. He was a healthy man in the prime of life, and she had never been truly alone before with a strong, disgustingly healthy male before. She had spent time with Inuyasha and Miroku, of course, but even then there had been others---Shippou and Kagome, her brother or old Kaede. Even when she had been _with_ Miroku it had been for such short, sweet moments stolen from time on the journey, and not days-on-end close and uncomfortably intimate proximity.

She was careful to maintain the distance between them, and so had he---at least, he had _before_. Now he seemed to mock her for it, and when she deliberately turned away, he grew angry for some reason, and lashed out with a hard comment or deliberate goad.

Just yesterday she had found herself staring as Bankotsu bent over the fire, laying kindling to bring up the waning embers. The muscles had rippled along his back and shoulders, for he was bare to the waist as usual, and the long cords in his arms had stood out as he caught a small log that slipped from his grasp. His hands were quick, the fingers long and calloused. She had felt her breath catch and he must have heard her, for he turned his head sharply to look at her. She had flushed in embarrassment and turned away, deliberately picking up a pile of mending she had already sorted.

His eyes had flashed, and he smirked. She tried to act innocent, and inquired mildly, "Yes?"

"Heh." He went back to building up the fire, and then sat back on his butt, his arms braced behind him as he bent his knees, feet flat on the floor. Deliberately stretching like a cat, he popped a bone in his spine and loosened the tension from his wide shoulders with a few rolling shrugs. Sango pretended not to notice, setting herself down on the side of the dais and carefully threading a needle. The damn thread kept slipping through her sweaty fingers, though, and she felt flushed and hot all over. Scowling at the stupid needle, she bit her lip and tried to concentrate.

She almost shrieked when his face loomed into hers, and he plucked both needle and thread from her hands. "You're doing that all wrong," he growled, and licked the end of her thread with his tongue, making her breath catch again.

"I can thread a needle," Sango said sharply, her nerves on edge and her mind in turmoil.

How far could one man suck string inside his mouth? He would choke on it, and serve him right. He was deliberately wetting the white thread in a mocking show that he knew _exactly_ what he was doing, and she wanted to kill him for it.

He neatly threaded the needle and smirked at her rather stormy expression. "One would think you never did this before, taijiya."

The gall of him!

"I---" Sango gritted her teeth and deliberately calmed herself. Closing her eyes, she counted to ten. She mustn't lose it. She owed him too much for caring for her so long, not to mention little Mikomi. She refused to give in to her anger, despite his deliberate poking.

Her eyes flew open in shock as a calloused thumb ran lightly over her lower lip. His blue eyes were dark as he said tauntingly, "What you need is more saliva, to dampen and warm it. Then it can slide in smoothly with no problem."

Sango's eyes widened as a bolt of lightning went straight to her core, where it settled itself to throb little lightnings throughout her entire body, making the fine hairs on her arms stand up at attention.

Seeking anything to distract herself from the sudden tension between them, Sango snatched the needle out of his other hand, and pricked her finger as a result. "Ow!"

"You're too hasty," he commented, the jerk, grabbing her hand so he could see the damage. They struggled silently for a moment, but he was stronger, and dragged her finger up for his mocking inspection. A small bead of blood welled out as he pushed, and she winced.

"I'm not hasty---" Sango gasped as the heat of his mouth abruptly enveloped her sensitive fingertip, sucking lightly. Blue eyes mocked hers as she froze in place at the strange sensation. Her mind shattered as lightning struck her anew.

"_Don't_," she said, in pain, and scooted back away from him as far as she could. Mikomi chose that moment to wake up, thank the gods, and she all but lunged for him, holding him up as a shield against the mercenary's hideous effect on her peace of mind.

Damn him anyway.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

Spring stepped in like a whispering lie of better days to come, for it was chill and damp, the sun wearily climbing over the winter-browned landscape with a wan light that did little to warm one. Anything was better than the icy breath of winter, however, and despite the splashing mud that turned the narrow paths of the village to a soupy mire, Sango fled out of the imprisoning confines of the small hut like a bird just freed from its parents' nest.

She wasn't the only one. Kirara, who would normally disdain getting mud on her nice clean paws (or between her clawed toes), bounded out the front door as if her twin tails truly were on fire, Bankotsu not too far behind her. The mercenary stepped out armed and armored, for he had riffled through the various weapons stored under oilcloth in the back of the storehouse and claimed an odd assortment for his own use. His beloved Banryuu lay shattered and buried beneath the rubble of Mount Hakurei, and the twin daggers he had selected resembled short-swords rather than long knives. Armed with a bow and quiver full of arrows, he cupped his hand over his eyes and peered out at the dull green line of the distant trees just outside the village palisade.

"Me and the furball are going hunting," he said shortly, not glancing back at her.

Sango looked at Kirara's larger form. The neko merely shrugged, her red eyes crinkling up at the corners. "Stay safe," she offered lamely, though Bankotsu was already sprinting over the wilted brown grass. Kirara shrugged again, and took to the air with a giant leap, fire trailing from her black paws.

Finally freed of his presence, Sango felt elation at first, but then a nagging sense of aching loneliness stole away the sweet thought. The village was so quiet and still! The wet eaves dripped into the splattered mud left by the showers earlier that morning, and her wooden clogs made obscene sucking noises as she stepped carefully along the muddy paths. Mikomi slept, oblivious as usual, and so she had time for herself for once, and meandered her way slowly toward her family's graves. Praying over her father and brother brought peace to her troubled spirit, but she still felt a nagging ache that something was missing.

She wandered the empty village like a ghost---one who made obscene noises every time her shoes pulled out of the grip of the thick mud. She dithered here and there, and thought she should go and do something useful, but was too restless to sit down to any of the numerous tasks that always needed doing. She felt oddly abandoned, and her restless depression fed itself. Once there had been such life in this village. Perhaps it had been wrong to bring Mikomi here, where he would be so isolated from other people. She had been so happy here as a child, but it had been the other people in the tight, close-knit community that had helped to make her childhood such a rich one. Mikomi would not have that same warmth and security.

Not true. For Bankotsu had the ability to seem larger than life, just as her father had, and maybe that was what bothered her. For the ghosts of the village and the ghosts of what should have been a happy-ever-after life with her amorous monk seemed empty wisps of shadowy promises never uttered. The reality of her current situation was like a slap in the face. Bankotsu had such _life_ about him. It was rather ironic, actually, that a twice-dead man should have such health and vigor. It was almost horrible that Sango had wished, once or twice, in her deepest and most secret heart of hearts that it had been Miroku who had been given that chance, and not the mercenary.

She couldn't wish that now. Bankotsu had become live, and living, to her, and the more he did, the more Miroku's memory faded by contrast. Bankotsu was life here and now, and Miroku belonged to that past life, before Mikomi, and before betrayal and heartache and treacherous thoughts filled her head and heart with such utter misery.

She had betrayed Miroku in every way she could. Even his memory, and the memory of his love.

Bowing her head, Sango sobbed, her heart shattering in the empty silence.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

If anything, she grew more silent and withdrawn as the dismal end of winter drew out for what seemed forever. Bankotsu didn't know what to make of it, but he knew he hated it and despised her for it, for her quiet depression was even affecting Mikomi. The boy was fussy and grew anxious if his mother was out of his sight. Such neediness was not normal for the boy, who was usually so easygoing it was a bit disconcerting. The boy had just started walking, and would stumble after her, sniffling and tripping over his own feet, as she crossed the room. Gods, that was pathetic.

They were all pensive, and walked on a dagger's edge around her. Well, he didn't bother all that much, actually, but everyone else did. It seemed as if the taijiya had grown so brittle that she might shatter if she were mishandled in some rough way. He tried at first to be solicitous of her feelings, and had absented himself at any excuse of an opportunity because she seemed to be on edge now whenever he was around her. That crap didn't last long, though, because he grew quickly tired of such stupid games, and irritated that she had become such a mushy piece of sad-eyed dough.

Her eyes no longer flashed in ire at some callous remark of his. Her lips no longer thinned and her knuckles no longer whitened holding back some smart or snappy reply. She just sat there like a big ump, her eyes lowering if he stared hard at her or made some smart-ass remark. Worse was when she only turned away, silent, the piteous bird cradling its broken wing close to its body so that it could go off and die slowly by itself, not troubling the uncaring world around it with its poor, pitiful presence.

That was fucked up, and unworthy of her. He didn't like it and he would be damned if he kept allowing her to act like life had just grown too wearisome to live. She was dying by inches, whether she knew it or not, and he refused to sit by and watch that happen. Somehow she had lost her will to fight for life, and it probably had to do with some stupid guilt she had over that stupid monk. That hentai's shade was sucking all the life out of her, and Bankotsu for one refused to let her sink into a senseless mire of her own making.

The time had come to confront her about all that had happened between and betwixt them. He had been allowed life once more, when it should have been denied him, sour bastard that he was, and he was not about to let her ruin this new chance at happiness.

For as she had needed him during that long winter of weakness, he now needed her for his own true completion. For he missed her fire, now that it was gone, and he missed her, damn it, now that she had deliberately withdrawn herself from him. He deserved more from her than silent resignation, as did Mikomi, and he was damned if he wouldn't fight all heaven and earth to make her give up that stupid ghost and see what was right there before her.

The time had come to confront the shared demons of their past, will she or nil she.

His smile was slow and wicked, his cobalt eyes gleaming. He had always loved a good fight, and now was as good a time as any…


	7. Interval 4

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, etc. This story is for entertainment purposes only.

_COBALT SKIES AND TOO-BLUE EYES_

Summary: A dream haunts Sango in the eyes of her newborn son. As the veils between this world and the next are drawn back on the night of seasonal equinox, she must consider that the ghost of the father might come seeking both her and her son… ("after Naraku" canon cont., SangoXBankotsu, some InuyashaXKagome)

_WORDS_

_Higure - twilight, evening_

_A/N: I have argued with myself about including yet another interval, but the next chapter is too different for me to add these little scenes to, and as the intervening scenes between the last segment and this one waxed long, I found myself finally deciding to just go with the flow, LOL, and update as is. Hope this is as fun to read as it was to write…(Fate)_

_A/N 2: Ack! Forgot to add that Sangoskates2 has done two fanpics for this story. They can be found on deviantart, links are here: (take out spaces)_

_h t t p / s a n g o - s k a t e s 2 . d e v i a n t a r t . c o m / a r t / T o j i - 5 9 0 1 1 7 7 0_

_h t t p / s a n g o - s k a t e s 2 . d e v i a n t a r t . c o m / a r t / G e s h i - 5 9 0 1 3 0 4 9_

_Much gratitude for the fanart, it totally inspired me to finish this chapter. Thank you, Sangoskates! (Fate)_

WARNING! ADULT SITUATIONS AND ISSUES, NO ONE UNDER 17, PLEASE!

_INTERVAL IV (HIGURE)_

She surprised the smack out of him by being the one to finally bring emotions to a head.

"Now that it is warmer and I'm not so sick, I think that it would be better if you moved into your own house."

Bankotsu choked on a mouthful of savory rice and wild goat. Typical woman---she had taken him in a moment of weakness, when he was caught completely off-guard.

Sputtering, he used the stalling tactic all men used in such a situation. "Hh-huh?"

"I think you should move into your own---" she patiently repeated, hands folded in her lap and voice low, her eyes refusing to meet his.

"I heard you the first time!" he snarled, irritated that she dared to even think it.

In the past she might have bristled and snapped something like "Well, then why the hell did you just ask me?" or she might have, in the interests of keeping the peace, merely bristled, her eyes glaring daggers and her nostrils flaring that least little bit as she mentally counted to ten.

Now she just sat there refusing to meet his livid gaze, and his lip curled up in contempt. He deliberately misunderstood her and took it personally that she would ask such a thing of him. Him---who had stood by her side, holding her shaky ass over the chamber pot or wiping the snot from her reddened nose or forcing tea down her stubborn throat. Did she think he _liked_ doing that kind of shit? That he got some type of weird thrill out of being _helpful? _He was a mercenary, damn it! He usually got _paid_ for helping somebody's dumb ass out!

"Are you fucking insane---" His grand sally, heightened by weeks of frustration and pent-up anger, fell fall short of its grand entrance for Mikomi chose that precise moment to wail at the raised voices in what was normally his too-quiet abode. Both of their attention was immediately turned to concern for their child.

Sango was faster than he in going to pick their son up. Cradling the little stage-hog to her shoulder, she tried to make soothing sounds to comfort the distraught little boy. Disgruntled, Bankotsu watched as the boy snuggled against his mother, face red and sniffling. He felt like an ass. Damn it, anyway. It was all her fault.

Mikomi didn't like it when they both hovered. It confused the poor brat. Sango had the babe well in hand, and he was only going to get in the way. That irritated him, too---that she was comforting their son and not he---and so he got up and left to go outside and fume by himself. Blue eyes as stormy as his son's, he stomped on out into the deepening dusk of the departing day.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

Mikomi was upset and it took all her patience and calm to soothe the poor little boy back to sleep. Sango was tired, dog-tired, by the time she finally laid the babe back down in his pen. All her energy seemed drained right out of her---but that wasn't anything new as of late. She never seemed to have energy for anything lately. It was just so hard to do the simple things---like chores---anymore. What was the point to it all? The daily struggle and the daily toll. The daily work and the daily drudge. There was just no point to it all.

There was Mikomi, of course, and it was he who allowed her to get up in the mornings and to smile those few rare times that she did smile, but it just seemed so same, so unending, and so _same_. Bless his little heart, he could sense her weary listlessness and tried to comfort her in his own little way. She knew she was affecting him, that the depression eating at her was also eating up her son, but she couldn't seem to do anything about it. She felt helpless and weak, and it was just all so damn wearying to even think about.

Life had become one simple task after another and she kept trudging on, for she couldn't _not_ trudge on. That was unthinkable, now that there was Mikomi to think about. So she ghosted from one dull task to another, trudging on and not wanting to think too much about it. Now she had to go trudge outside and confront Bankotsu---yet another damn task for her to do.

She didn't want to confront him. He was so vivid, so demanding, so frustratingly stubborn and unbending. Damn his calloused hide. Couldn't he see that it would be smarter for him to take his own residence? Kami knew that there were plenty of empty homes in the village! It wasn't like she was asking for him to leave altogether. He was still Mikomi's father and she still believed wholeheartedly that her son needed him in his life. She wasn't asking him anything she shouldn't. It was ridiculous for them to keep sharing one small hut when there were plenty out there. Besides, they would both breathe a little easier when they weren't always on top of one another, constantly getting in each other's way and on each other's nerves.

It wasn't like they were married or ever would be. It wasn't as if they needed to share the hut, as they had in the long winter. Spring had taken its time approaching but had finally arrived. New buds had formed and the constant rain had at least abated. The days were growing warmer, though the nights still stayed cold enough that she was glad of the fire kept burning in the central hearth.

If Bankotsu took his own hut than she might be freed of the constant reminder of her betrayal toward her beloved houshi. Not that she wouldn't see him every day---it was a small village, after all, with only two people in it. But she might not have that constant awareness of the mercenary, that constant pain. Bankotsu had become more real to her than her lost Miroku and Sango was desperate to cling to anything that might stop that hideous insinuation of truth. Bankotsu was here, now, in the all-too-real flesh and Miroku was but a wisp of tender memory. She was so ashamed of that harsh truth and couldn't, wouldn't, let it continue.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

Kirara wasn't about to pass up the chance to watch them fight. Bankotsu scowled at the stupid cat who sat so serenely on the porch, patiently waiting for the explosion. She knew, damn youkai, that he wasn't about to give in on this one and that the fireworks were about to fly.

If just a little quieter than before. He didn't want to wake his son up, the guilt would eat him to hell and beyond. He wasn't that much of an ass.

Though he sure felt like one.

It took forever for Sango to calm their son back to sleep. Or it seemed like forever. He spent the time glaring at the cat, who spent the time staring back at him with her two tails wrapped neatly around her front paws as she sat on her haunches, serenely waiting with an almost delighted look of anticipation in her bloody eyes.

"Stupid cat."

"She's not stupid."

He looked up in surprise at that weary riposte. Sango stood in the doorway, absently wiping her hands across her green skirt. Clad in a lighter yukata for the warmer spring air, she was unaware of how the glow from the hearth backlit her womanly figure in a halo of orange and gold as the twilight deepened. Her eyes were dark and tired.

He liked that she had contradicted him. Crossing his arms and leaning against the porch-rail, he smirked with good cheer, "I say she's stupid."

A whisker twitched on the watching kitten but Sango seemed to deflate, her shoulders slumping slightly as she turned her eyes away.

"Don't do that!" Bankotsu hissed, moving as fast as a snake to grip the taijiya's shoulder and turn her back towards him. Gods, he hated how craven she had become.

"Please," she whispered, the pain in her voice harsh.

"Damn you, taijiya! What the hell is wrong with you?" He kept his voice low, for his sleeping son's sake, but he could not keep the bewildered anger from it.

"Nothing is wrong with me," she said, though they both knew she lied.

"Damn that hentai monk to hell!" Bankotsu snarled in a whisper of pure rage and regret.

Her open palm cracked against his cheek, as stinging a blow as his bitter words were to her heart.

"How dare you!" Her whisper was as harsh as his, her eyes brimming over. She hated for him to see her weakness and hated him for the causing of it. Stepping back, she turned her head away again.

"No." His voice was hard. "You won't turn away from me like that. I don't deserve it, not after you just slapped the shit out of me."

"Why can't you just leave me alone?" she sobbed, broken in spirit and battered by guilt.

"Is that what you want? That I leave you alone? That I leave you and Mikomi alone?" His voice was a whip's crack of coarse demand. "He's my _son!"_

"Don't you think I know that? Don't you think I know that only too well? Gods, Bankotsu! Can't you understand that I can never forget that _you_ are Mikomi's father, and not Miroku? That I _betrayed_ him? With _you?"_

"And that's why I curse that stupid monk to the hottest hell and curse you, too, taijiya, because you won't ever forget that fact, or forgive yourself, or me, for what was not even your fault, but mine!" Bankotsu shouted, uncaring now if he woke his son or not. His pain was too raw, his own regret too close to the surface. He felt like an ass. How could he have ever dreamed that they might find love between them with such a stark stain betwixt them?

Sango could only crumple with the sobs that wracked her thin frame. She couldn't even rouse when Mikomi's awakened squalls rose above her own. It was Bankotsu who stalked back inside the hut to comfort their son while she fell in a broken heap against the porch's wall, Kirara mewing at her feet in anxious concern.

Sango felt like a pathetic weakling. She was a terrible mother. Mikomi needed her and she couldn't even get up off the wall to go to him. It was Bankotsu who had the strength to go and comfort their son. She was such a weak, pathetic, horrible person. She had betrayed her beloved houshi with her weakness, and she was now betraying her beloved son with it.

A strong arm suddenly enfolded her in a tight hug and Sango stiffened at the abrupt intrusion. He held her tightly to him, though, and she slowly crumpled into his strength, burying her head in his shoulder as Mikomi sniffled in the crook of his other arm.

"Kaah!"

Sango smothered a choking laugh-sob as Mikomi hollered for her again. "Kaah! Kaah! Kaah!"

"He needs you, Sango," Bankotsu said gently. "We both do."

Sango shuddered against his shoulder at those simple words of truth. How, she could not know, but they did, and she needed them as well. She had been drowning in her own misery and pain for far too long and she had never realized that he understood it, that he felt it and shared it, no matter how indifferently he showed it.

"I'm sorry," she offered lamely, feeling it was a poor gift for his.

"I'm sorry, too," Bankotsu said roughly, hugging her tighter to him. He meant it, with all his soul. If he could take back that night he would---but then he would never had had his son, and her, to draw him back from the dead. For he realized suddenly, sharply, that it wasn't Mikomi who had called him back on that cold winter's night, but _her_, Sango. Mikomi had drawn him in his restlessness as a wandering spirit not of this earth, but it was Sango and Sango alone who had drawn him across the veils that separated this world and the next and willed life into his dead soul in order to save hers.

Mikomi could care less what revelations rocked his parents. He only cared that he was upset and needed comfort. "Kaah!"

Sango shook with a shaky laugh and withdrew enough to look up at her son's tear-stained face. She touched his cheek gently and gave him a watery smile. "I'm sorry, little one."

Mikomi's mouth puckered. He looked ready to wail again, until Sango took him into her arms and cradled him against her shoulder. Rubbing his tensed little back, she rocked him gently, murmuring soothingly as she laid her black head against his. Mikomi hiccupped and sniffled, finally sticking a fat finger in his mouth as he sighed in sleepy contentment, "Kaah…"

ooOOooOOooOOoo

The problems and issues between them were hardly solved by one night's argument and forgiveness, no matter how illuminating. Sango still thought that Bankotsu should move into his own hut, and would bring the subject up from time to time. He would only glare and stalk out of the room, stubbornly refusing to say a word about the matter.

How could one argue with such blatant refusal to even discuss the possibility? She thought of moving his stuff out, of even putting it on the porch, but thought that was ill treatment after all he had done the winter past in caring for them. She pointedly cleaned out two of the huts, one right beside the storehouse and closest to hers, but Bankotsu only grunted when she told him and kept wolfing down his dinner as if he were starving.

Spring blossomed into flower, the monsoonal rains finally abating enough so that the muddy paths were allowed to dry and the young grass could rise untrammeled by the steady deluge. The pulse of life renewed and birds sang madly in the forest as the sun smiled across skies so blue it ached to look at them. Sango felt the pulse of life renewing in her weary soul as well, and her burdened heart slowly opened as she looked around her with eyes cleared of the haunting regret that had beheld her enthralled before.

Forgiveness was sweet to the savor, although she could not yet come to love the man who had caused it. She still felt the shadow of pain and guilt whenever she thought of her beloved Miroku, but she no longer let it claim her every moment and idle thought. She devoted herself to her son and took delight as he went from a stumbling walk to a sturdy run on his fat little legs as he chased his longer-legged father. Everything he put hand to promptly ended up in his mouth, and Sango had to snatch stuff from his tight grasp at every turn.

Sango felt a peace in her heart that she had not known since Bankotsu first came back into her life. The mercenary was hardly a peaceful man, and they disagreed quite often, though they were considerate---perhaps too much so---of each other's feelings. They danced delicately around each other's more passionate natures and their interactions were mild and friendly. It was a time of healing for both their wounded spirits, but Sango wondered sometimes if the contrary mercenary would put up with it for much longer. She had caught herself a time or two biting back a sarcastic comment and had seen the sour look in his own blue eyes from time to time as he did the same.

His chauvinistic opinions rankled her more often than not. She would never forget when he had caught sight of Mikomi playing with the little rag doll she had made for him. It was a simple thing---hardly a doll, really. A simple square, with a lumpy head tied off with a discarded ribbon at the neck. Bankotsu's unholy horror of the toy was almost funny, though his manly outrage rubbed Sango's womanly pride no end.

"What the hell is that?" The mercenary had stopped in the doorway upon seeing his son playing on the floor with the simple doll.

"It's a toy," Sango had said, amused at the mercenary's rather curious expression.

"It's a doll!" Bankotsu had sputtered in shock.

Sango said nothing, serenely separating the clean linens she was folding.

"My son has a doll." Bankotsu looked horrified as he spoke that awful thought aloud. Sango smothered a smile and kept folding.

"A doll. My son has a _doll_."

Emphasizing the point was not doing anything about that awful fact, so Bankotsu decided to take matters into his own hands and strode forward to take the abomination from his son's company. Sango made to protest but Mikomi beat her to it. The boy set up such a loud fuss as his new toy was taken away that Bankotsu eventually had to give in to the inevitable and leave the beloved doll with his tearful son.

"It's new; he'll abandon it soon enough." The mercenary comforted himself, but Mikomi refused to give it up, even sleeping with the thing, much to his father's disgust and Sango's secret glee.

Another disagreement---or _discussion_, as Sango was careful to label it in her mind---was the fact that Bankotsu refused to plant seedlings in the long-disused fields. "I am not a bloody farmer," he pronounced when Sango broached the subject over dinner one night. "I'm not going to muddy my feet in the dirt for a few measly weeds."

"Do you want to eat rice or not?" Sango had snapped at him, then thought better of it. Quieting her ire, she had said quietly, "This village has always provided for itself."

"I'm not this village---" Bankotsu began with a snarl, then paused at the hurt look in the taijiya's brown eyes.

Rubbing the back of his head, he sighed long and gustily as he raised his blue eyes to heaven. "Gah. Forget I said that."

Sango quickly nodded acceptance, keeping the peace, and Bankotsu qualified, "I'm not a farmer, and I'm not about to learn. It takes long hours and hard work to raise decent crops and I'm not about to struggle for a few measly grains. I'm a warrior and I'll do what _I _know how to do. I can hunt for meat to trade for rice and whatever else you need. _That_, I can do. Understand?"

"Yes," Sango agreed to keep the peace, though she thought he refused the idea too readily. But she was hardly qualified to tend more than a garden, and so let the matter lie. She didn't want to admit that the mercenary had a point, too proud to want to admit her wrong, but she went hunting with him when Kirara was willing to watch over a sleeping Mikomi and was delighted when it was _her_ arrow that took down the young buck they had been tracking for the past hour. Bankotsu had surprised her with a loud whoop at her clean kill and she had blushed like a maid as he abruptly picked her up and swung her around with a hearty yell of approval.

"Ha! That's how you do it!" He'd grinned like a boy, and she had blushed harder. His blue eyes had darkened with admiration, and for a breathless second Sango had thought that he just might kiss her, but he had only set her gently to her feet and went to go clean their kill to haul it back home.

Sango felt strangely disappointed by his too-casual attitude as they tramped back to the village but she kept the banter light between them, as he did, and thought it was better that they were friends. It was far better.

It was.

Really.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

Sleeping on the floor sucked.

Bankotsu shifted, trying to find a soft spot on the hard boards. No matter how many blankets he piled on the floor, it still felt like floor. He remembered sourly how Sango had reminded him oh-so-innocently just last night that there were pallets gone begging in some of the other huts of the village. It was yet another subtle reminder that he should move the fuck out, but he wasn't about to do that.

He had thought of taking one of those stupid pallets and using it here on the floor---it would certainly make his nights better, to be lying on a softer bed---but then that hardly suited his adopted role of martyred man, forced to lie alone by the cold hearth. He kept hoping Sango would take pity on his poor, manly self and invite him to share her pallet.

Not going to happen. That wench was as pitiless as she was oblivious to all the broad hints he had been giving her the past few months.

Bankotsu sighed, absently scratching his aching balls as he turned over on his back. How long could one man survive without exploding from pure sexual frustration? Here he was, mere feet from a beautiful woman he loved with every fiber of his being, and he couldn't even find solace in her welcoming arms. Beating off was a poor substitute to the taijiya's remembered charms, and he was about ready to---

"Oh-Tou?"

Bankotsu rolled over, all sour thoughts dissolving as he felt a little, warm body tumble head-long across his shoulder. His raised head jerked back with a hard thump against the unforgiving floor as a little bare foot callously stepped on his long braid.

"Ow! Off my hair, brat." Bankotsu swung an arm around his son and swooped him up off his hair and across his bare chest as the little monster giggled in delight at the new game.

"What's the matter?" The concern in Sango's sleepy voice was touching, even if he was a little busy at the moment tickling his son, who shrieked with laughter.

"The little monster woke up and came visiting again," Bankotsu said, tickling a bare foot.

"Mikomi? It's night time. Sleepy time. Did you need something? Is that why you woke up?" Ever seriously maternal, Sango's concern threaded the darkness that enfolded the hut.

"Pee!" Mikomi answered with a gleeful laugh as his father tickled his other bare foot.

"Pee?" Bankotsu felt a chill of dread.

"Pee!" Mikomi shrieked in triumph as he did just that.

"_Fuck!"_ Bankotsu howled. Mikomi laughed as his father rolled free of the sopping blankets and held his delighted son at arm's length in frank disgust. "Ew. Gods, that's gross."

Sango was no help, overcome as she was by a fit of the giggles. Bankotsu wrinkled his nose at the warm, pungent aroma that rose from his sodden self. Gathering what dignity he could in such a situation, he tucked his son under one arm and stalked outside to go wash them both off in the stream that ran just past the storehouse.

The night was warm, the moon a brilliant white ball low on the western horizon. Dawn was still a few hours off, but Bankotsu did not feel at all sleepy as he stalked across the thick grass toward the burbling creek that meandered through the village. Mikomi babbled nonsense sounds, delighted at being outside under the stars. Ducking the brat in the chilly stream was quite a different matter. Mikomi's angry yells were loud enough to wake the dead if Bankotsu were any judge---and he should be, if anyone was.

He didn't like the cold water any more than his son and grimaced as he slid in with him. The stream was not deep here, barely coming to his thighs, but he held Mikomi up as he shucked off his soiled hakama and started grimly stripping the protesting boy as well. Using scouring sand from the stream's bottom, he scrubbed both of them clean with a thorough hand. Mikomi hollered the whole time, and Bankotsu was ready to drown the boy by the time he was done.

"Look, brat, we're done. You can quit your hollering. We're getting out now. See?" Bankotsu strode through the splashing water and looked up as he felt a shadow loom out of the dark.

"Oh-Kaah!" Mikomi wailed for rescue from his barbarian of a father.

"I thought you might need a towel…" Sango fell silent as she stared at them. The moon silvered the bodies of father and son, shadows dipping across their grey flesh at crazy angles. Bankotsu was certain he could feel the heat from the taijiya's blush even from several feet away.

"That's good." He kept his voice nonchalant, striding forward through the water to stand next to the bank.

"Um, yes." Sango averted her eyes, extending the towel as Mikomi stretched his arms out toward his rescuer.

A wicked thought entered the mercenary's mind, and it was too perfect a chance for him to pass up. Grabbing the towel, he jerked, and Sango fell forward with a startled shriek loud enough to kill the dead, if they weren't dead already.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

"Are you crazy!"

Sputtering in wet anger, Sango dragged the sopping bangs from her eyes with one hand while she punched the unrepentant mercenary with the other. Mikomi yelled, angry that her ungraceful fall into the water had gotten him wet again. Bankotsu was too busy laughing his ass off for him to care how upset the boy was, so Sango snatched the poor boy from his callous father's arms. Gathering what dignity she could, she turned to march back out of the chilly stream, back stiff and teeth clenched, one completely pissed off taijiya.

Except a pair of strong arms wrapped themselves around her waist, halting her in her tracks as a wet head laid against her shoulder. The mercenary was still convulsing with silent laughter, his shaking frame causing her to shake as well as he leaned heavily on her for support. Eyes ablaze with indignation, Sango executed a complicated maneuver that freed herself from the unwanted burden. She sprang nimbly back up on the grassy bank, Mikomi snuffling in her protective embrace.

It was Bankotsu's turn to fall face-first into the chilly water and he fell with a surprised yell louder even than hers had been. Frankly impressed by the sound, Mikomi quit sniffling to regard his father with dawning awe. Smirking, Sango hitched the boy higher on her hip and turned saucily away, though the wet hem of her yukata made her stumble slightly as the damp fabric wrapped itself stubbornly to her legs.

"Don't think you can get away that easily, taijiya!" Bankotsu hollered behind her. Blinking, Sango turned enough to see the man jumping back up on the bank, his teeth flashing in the silvery moonlight as he smiled grim promise.

Sango's sense of self-preservation was quite strong. Her feet were fast, and she was never one to sit on go when she had to get the hell out of danger. Fleeing was the best course of action right now, and so she put action to words and took off, her son held protectively to her breast as she ran pell-mell for the relative safety of the hut.

Bankotsu was not the best strategist, but he was fleet of foot and unburdened by the angry wiggling of an upset little toddler. Racing around the other side of the storehouse, he beat the taijiya to the dirt path between the buildings by mere seconds, grabbing her in his arms as she skidded on her muddy bare feet and collided headlong into him.

Swinging her up in his strong arms, he stopped her loud protest by claiming his prize and kissing her soundly. She was too surprised to respond by the time his mouth left hers, and he only grinned at her rather stunned expression. "I win!"

Her mouth fell open in shock as he gently set her back on her feet. She was still in shock as he plucked their confused son from her limp arms and sauntered back toward the hut, whistling tunelessly as he sauntered triumphantly up the steps.


	8. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, etc. This story is for entertainment purposes only.

_COBALT SKIES AND TOO-BLUE EYES_

Summary: A dream haunts Sango in the eyes of her newborn son. As the veils between this world and the next are drawn back on the night of seasonal equinox, she must consider that the ghost of the father might come seeking both her and her son… ("after Naraku" canon cont., SangoXBankotsu, some InuyashaXKagome)

_WORDS_

_Gaki - hungry ghost_

_Shunbun - vernal equinox, celebrated March 20__th__ on the Gregorian calendar_

_A/N: I apologize for the long wait--my muse was on hiatus. She returned last night with a vengeance, when I got a sudden fit of inspiration and sat down to pound this chapter out all in one night. I finished editing today, and couldn't wait to post. I think parts of it are rushed--there are others where I think that Sango is acting a little OOC, but I might be able to chalk it up to the fact that Bankotsu might have worn off on her a bit, considering how much time they have spent together over the past few months. LOL. Tell me what you think. Is she OOC? Is the chapter rushed, and did her reasoning come out sound? I have a terrible time with love triangles--mostly because I can't stand a woman who can't make up her damn mind, and leaves two (or more, leer!) perfectly awesome guys waiting on her damn whim for one of them to get his heart broken. Now, love triangles where all three sides are equally loved, that's a different story. Yum! Gawd, I love those! Gets me dreamy-eyed...but anyway! Enough babbling. Hope you enjoy! (Fate)_

WARNING! ADULT SITUATIONS AND ISSUES, NO ONE UNDER 17, PLEASE! LEMONS SERVED (LIME ON FFNET)

_CHAPTER FOUR (SHUNBUN)_

_Sango…_

Dreams stirred her sleepy mind, troubling the calm waters of her stilled thoughts as a single voice whispered to her from the darkness.

_Sango…_

She rolled over, restless as her mind sought to burrow further into the blackness of utter oblivion, where sorrowful dreams could not follow. It had been a long day, and the weariness lay across her shoulders like a shroud. "Mhmmmm…."

A black ear twitched in rapid flicks, as if something ghosted along the fine hairs of the delicate triangle. Kirara blinked grumpily as she raised her head to stare around the quiet hut with glowing eyes. The light snores coming from the pile of blankets on the floor by the hearth were interrupted by a louder snort from the boy's father, who held the sleeping toddler across his bare chest anchored by one arm.

Twitching her whiskers in disgust at the noise, Kirara wrapped her twins tails more firmly around her rear haunches. Lowering her head to her front paws, she closed her red eyes to add her own faint sigh to the somnolent hut as she settled back down to sleep.

_Sango…_

The cat jerked back awake, hissing slightly, her ears twitching again to lie back along her skull as the lumpy blankets abruptly moved under her as her mistress sat up. Sensing something troubling on the spring night air, Kirara started to get up when a voluminous shadow loomed out of the dark to envelop her in trapping layers of confinement. Spitting and yowling her displeasure, the cat fought the blankets Sango had just casually flung over her to finally win free by worming her way out the far end. By the time she released herself, Sango was already gone.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

Half-aware, and yet so unaware, she slipped outside into the night. The wet grass tickled her bare feet as her steps whispered lightly over them. Murky shadows surrounded her on all sides, the empty buildings of the village muffled by the grey fog that rolled toward her, a fog that glowed with a strange, ethereal light as its wispy tendrils wound themselves around her path, encircling her as if to encourage her on. She was drawn, her heart beating fast like a bird's wings trapped inside a cage. Ghosts of the past stirred on the air, urging her on as she quickened her pace.

_Sango…_

"Who are you?" she asked, her heart yearning even as fear nipped its icy way down her spine. Her words made no stir in the foggy shadows that surrounded her, the abandoned huts of the village obscured into large lumps within the darker gloom. "Why are you calling me? Who are you?"

_Sango…_

It was such a familiar voice, such an achingly familiar voice.

"Father?"

No…that wasn't it…who was it? "Who are you? Tell me, please!"

There was nothing but the sense that she should hurry, that she should come quickly, that she was needed…wanted…desired…only her…only her…

_Help me…Sango…_

"I'm coming! I'm coming, hold on!"

Her fingers fumbled on the dewy chill of the side-gate's lock. The bar was heavy, she grunted while lifting it, tossing it aside and wincing as a splinter from the rough plank dug itself into her thumb. It hit the ground with a dull thud, but she was already creaking open the gate, shoving it aside so she could squeeze past it.

The abandoned fields rolled toward the dark forest beyond, a forest that seemed brooding and withdrawn, menacing in its very shadows. Fog wisped its way between the trees, roiling tendrils working themselves among the skeletal outlines of the dense brush beneath. She hesitated, uncertain, still feeling as if she slept, dreaming, but the call was stronger, the need to come, come help, all but screaming itself along her spine and making her teeth ache with the urgency of it.

_Sango…please…help me…Sango…_

_Who are you? _She cried in her mind even as her feet stumbled into a run. "I'm coming…I'm coming…hold on…just hold on…"

Eyes closed, hands outstretched, the taijiya sped toward the beckoning trees.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

Scooting over to the sleeping man, Kirara plaintively meowed in mounting worry as she batted at one bare shoulder.

"Mmphmm…" The shoulder only shrugged as the mercenary turned his head away from the disturbance. "Go 'way…"

Disgusted, Kirara scratched him--lightly--trying to get his attention.

A hand batted her half-heartedly away. "Damn 'squitos…"

Jumping back, Kirara growled impatiently as the mercenary turned half on his side, curling around his son, who continued to snore on, as oblivious as his father.

The dull thump of the gate-bar hitting the ground and the squeak of the gate being pushed open lent urgency to the neko youkai's growing fright. Yowling her alarm, Kirara sprang at the mercenary with all claws out, knowing it was the easiest way to wake the damn dunce up.

A pained howl split the night as Kirara sprang neatly away as the pile of blankets on the floor erupted into a tornado of struggling limbs and wailing child. Mikomi's outraged cry filled the hut, his volume making the fire-cat's ears flatten to her head in distinct discomfort even as the orange flames surrounded her as she transformed into her larger form.

"What the fuck? Mikomi--ow--Mikomi--quit hollering, brat! What the hell is going on? Kirara!" Bankotsu fronted her with wild eyes, his son tucked under one arm like a sack, a bared knife held fisted in the other.

Kirara reowled, hopping on Sango's empty pallet and then leaping over to the bamboo curtain that hung in the doorway, pawing at it to show him the problem.

"Sango? Where's Sango, Kirara?" There was a fear in the mercenary's blue eyes to matched the neko's own. She hissed, and pawed at the door, darting outside.

The mercenary followed, absently hitching at the loose hakama that hung around his hips as Mikomi screamed in a full-blown temper at having been awoken so abruptly. Kirara darted up the dirt path, the fire in her paws trailing wispy sparks in the air as she leaped for the opened gate.

The mercenary stilled, as if sensing something in the heavy spring air, something not wrong, precisely, but something definitely not right. It was an eerie presence, a sensation that made the thick hair on the back of Kirara's neck stand up. Mikomi sniffled, abruptly quieting himself as if he, too, could sense the strangeness of it.

It wasn't totally unexpected--this was the night of vernal equinox, when the veils between worlds slipped, and restless ghosts stirred themselves in the long hours until dawn. Specters moved on the wind, their presence an eerie undertone to the vague wrongness that plagued all of them with uneasy premonition.

"Kirara, I need you to guard Mikomi. I need you to stay here and watch over him. I gotta go after her. I gotta go find her. I--now. I gotta go now." Bankotsu's eyes were dark pools, his teeth bared in a cattish snarl.

Kirara rowled her agreement, eyes glowing crimson. She followed him back inside the hut as he spun back around and summarily tumbled the child into his pen. Mikomi wailed, fisting tears from his eyes as he grabbed onto the bars of his cage and bounced up and down in angry bewilderment at being left behind.

Kirara picked the doubled-sheath of the mercenary's dao swords up in her mouth from where it hung on a peg beside the door. Bankotsu nodded a terse thanks as took the blades and slung them across his shoulder and back. "Take care of the brat," he said, and Kirara butted her thick head against his hip, urging him out the door. Mikomi was fine; Sango was not.

"Otou!" Mikomi hiccupped on a sob.

Bankotsu paused in the door, looking back at his son. "Be back, kid."

And then he was gone, the bamboo curtain slapping the door-frame loudly in his wake.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

The white cloth of her yukata caught on a stubborn branch and reluctantly tore free as Sango lurched her way past the clawing tree. Her bare feet and legs were numb to the chill and scratches that covered her skin, and broken leaves and twigs were tangled in the heavy length of her black hair. She stumbled on into the enshrouding fog that rolled around her, an ethereal glow adding to the ghostly feeling of _otherness_ that exuded from it. Her fingers extended, reaching for something just ahead of her as her steps faltered over an exposed tree root. She tripped, and fell to her knees, the jarring shock of it abruptly waking her up as she shivered in her thin night clothes, her eyes widening as she took in the small enclosure that opened before her.

"What?" she blinked, her thoughts feeling sluggish, as if she still walked in a dream. "Where…?"

She stared around her, icy dread itching its way down her spine as she realized that the dream-fog was real, that it was here, surrounding her in wispy wraiths of chilling dampness. The greenly yellow glow that exuded from it intensified, and she shivered, terror waking itself inside of her. A form moved inside that fog, a form that slowly materialized itself into the height and build of an achingly familiar figure she thought lost forever.

Her breath hitched, her throat going dry as she raised one hand to her chest to still the rapid beating of her heart. The pain was so intense, the burn of the feelings she had thought buried forever so stark it made tears spring to her eyes as she whispered hoarsely, "_Miroku_."

ooOOooOOooOOoo

"Sango!" His voice shook as he ran after her, his heart in his mouth as his lungs gasped for air in the tightness of his chest, where stark dread lay like a thick shroud over his heart. He followed the broken path of her steps across the overgrown fields, where the damp grass had been carelessly trampled in a direct line to the forest. He plunged unhesitatingly into the dark woods, though the eerie fog that swirled between the trees tried to swallow him, as if blocking his path. Snarling, he drew his short-swords and struck out at the fog, which cringed back, as if unwilling to make contact with the bared steel.

It was otherworld, then, the fog. It was true, then, as the granny folklore told, that spirits of the other plain could not stand the touch of live steel. He had never known the touch of it in his own ghostly wanderings, so hadn't been certain if it would do any good. Putting it to use now, he cut a swath through the dense mist, his voice growing hoarse as he shouted for her, desperation lending strength to his call.

"Sango! Where are you? Answer me, damn you! _Sango!"_

ooOOooOOooOOoo

He was there--there in front of her, his very face and form almost half-way forgotten by her treacherous heart, and she could only stare at him, the tears falling down her cheeks as her heart broke, for he was here, here now, in front of her, and she, gods, she could only sit on her knees, trembling before him in dread and longing, her love an overwhelming joy that left bitter ashes in her dry mouth as her heart thudded loud in her ears.

He was--beautiful. The green light glowed around him in a soft aura, his purple-midnight robes a darker shadow that stirred not so much as a whisper around him. His lightly tanned skin was a stark contrast to the inky darkness of his hair, to the wrapped beads that covered his right hand. He grasped his tall staff in the left, the brass rings stilled around the circle on top of the worn wood. He wore a faint smile, a tender smile, and his eyes, his beautifully blue eyes, so dark a twilight they seemed almost black in the unnaturally thick bed of his lashes…

_:Sango.:_

His voice was so achingly familiar, the sound of it inside her head so warm and tender and loving. The very timbre of it set her to trembling, for it was his, and gods, how she had missed it, she had missed it so much.

"Miroku…Miroku…how?" she breathed, her heart lurching into her tear-filled eyes.

_:I came for you, Sango. I could not leave you alone. Not again. I--love you. I--could not go on without seeing you once more. I have missed you, taijiya.:_

"Miroku, my god, Miroku…is it really you?"

His eyes were warm, the gentle humor in them an aching reminder as he smiled. _:Yes, Sango. It is I, your Houshi-sama.:_

Her hand reached out to him, afraid lest it all be a dream, an impossible dream. She could not stand that, she could not. "Miroku, I can't believe it. You're here."

_:Yes, Sango.: _His voice was like a warm spring breeze whispering across her senses, his presence so overwhelmingly real. He held his arms open, and she stumbled up to her feet and into them, circling her arms around his waist and burying her head into his chest as she felt his arms wrap around her, his robes rustling and his staff jangling discordantly as he let it go to fall unheeded to the earth. She felt the beat of his heart beneath her cheek, the warmth of the living in the solid feel of his strong flesh around her. She could feel the rise of his chest in breath as her heart broke open and she sobbed, all the pent up pain of her sorrow and loss bleeding out of her, as raw as the day it first came.

"Miroku, it's really you…Miroku!"

_:Shhh, now, my sweet Sango. Just cry, just let it out, all the pain and hurt and sorrow and anguish. I am so sorry, Sango. I am so very sorry. Let go, let all your feelings go. I am here for you…I am here now for you…just let it all go…:_

ooOOooOOooOOoo

He broke through the tangling underbrush with a snarl and a curse, fighting the thorny branches that rose to stop him. He stumbled upon the clearing, his eyes blinking painfully at the sudden light that flared up around him. His arm rose to shield his blurred sight from the shining glare, and he instinctively moved into a defensive crouch until his eyes could adjust to the change in light.

The man who held Sango to him looked up, his dark eyes narrowing as Bankotsu stared in open-mouthed shock at the scene before him. The ghost--for it was a ghost, his senses told him, the eerie feeling of the otherworld wrapping itself around him just as the fog did, circling behind him but not touching him, fearful of the steel blades he still bore in his white-knuckled hands.

It was him, the houshi, the hentai Miroku, and Sango was held cradled in his arms, as if he would never let go, as if _she_ would never let go. Bankotsu's heart stopped and an icy feeling stole down his chest.

_'By all the gods, not him. No…please…not him. Anyone but him, please…she loves him…she loves him…and I…'_

He snuffed that line of selfish pain out like a candle. He loved her too much to do differently. Curling the sharp pain into a small, icy lump, he dropped it somewhere in the back of his mind, when he might deal with the utter pain and loss of it later, when he had some quiet time to snarl and rage over the unfairness of it all. _:Damn him…:_

Drawing himself up, his lips curled with a sour smile. "Well, well. Isn't this a sweet surprise."

ooOOooOOooOOoo

Sango stiffened, her heart cracking in two at the mercenary's sharp words. She raised her head, her brown eyes wide as she turned to look behind her. There he was, naked to the waist, his dirtied hakama and bare feet at odds with the swords gripped tightly in his palms. His black hair was sleep-rumpled, part of it mashed to the side of his head, the other rising up in a tangled cowlick to fall carelessly across his forehead. His loosened braid hung down his back, snarled by twigs and broken leaves.

_'Bankotsu…' _Her heart leapt at the sight of him, and she suddenly felt hollow and craven, for here she was, in the arms of her true love, her houshi-sama, her gentle-eyed Miroku, and she was betraying him now as she had then, for the feelings that leapt inside of her at sight of the blue-eyed mercenary were too much like the ones she held for the man in whose arms she was.

She shuddered, tears forming as she realized with a dawning sick feeling inside of her that she loved _him_ as she loved the houshi who held her. She loved them both, loved them each equally and unstintingly and so much so that it hurt. So much so that it twisted inside of her, for it was so wrong, so terribly, utterly, horribly _wrong_ to love them both so damn much. It was so craven, so awful, such a stark betrayal to both of them that she could not stand it, how stupid she was, how terrible and awful a person it made her, and yet she could not deny it, could never deny it. Oh, gods, how could it be true and how could she be so immoral and shameful as to be so caught within the terrible truth of her indecisive, selfish heart?

_:Sango?: _His voice was so soft, so questioning--so broken, as if he knew the feelings that welled up inside her.

"Miroku…" Her voice broke, and she wanted to crawl inside herself and die at the stark pain in his compelling midnight gaze.

_:You _love _him. How could you love him? How could you betray me like that, Sango? How?: _His arms tightened around her, the pain in his voice catching her heart on a sob at the utter desolation of it.

"Miroku, I…" Her breath shuddered, and she felt so hopelessly torn, so terrible in the grief and pain she had caused him. The memories broke over her in a wash of shame as she relived them…all the terrible past betrayals she had made of him…that night where she lay in a stranger's arms, the child born of that night, and the ghost who came to save her in a howling winter storm, the ghost who became a man who became the support she needed to go on, to continue on in the wake of such terrible loss and desolation as when she felt herself alone without her dearest heart's dream, her houshi, her beloved…

_:A child? You have a child?: _The pain in his voice made her shudder again, for it struck sharply home that that is what he had always wanted and never had--a son to carry on his name and blood.

She nodded, her eyes dropping from his, unable to meet the stark agony in his. "I'm sorry, Miroku. I'm so very sorry…"

_:How could you, Sango? How could you do _that _to me? Of all your betrayals, of all you have done to me, how could you do_ that _as well? How?: _The whisper of his voice split her in two, howled its pain across her heart and seared itself inside her very soul. She shook with it, her breath coming ragged on the sobs that could not break free. It was all of her most horrible nightmares come true…

"Excuse me? Hello? Anybody see me standing here?" Bankotsu shouted, his belligerence sharp in the anguished tension of the mist-wrapped clearing.

_:You betrayed me. Feel the anguish of it…feel the pain of it…how could you…Sango, how _could_ you…:_

Sango wanted to step away from the stark pain in Miroku's words, but his grip tightened on her shoulders. _:No, Sango. Don't leave me, don't leave me for him, not again, not again…:_

"Again? Are you fucking kidding me?" Bankotsu glared. "You stupid hentai, Sango never stopped loving you--she couldn't stop loving you--and look what it's cost her. How the hell can you stand there telling her she betrayed you? Are you that selfish?"

_:You betrayed me…how could you? Feel the anguish of it…the pain…Sango…I loved you…how could you?:_ His arms tightened around her, his eyes filled with such agony she could not look away, and the sorrow and anguish seemed to rise up, as if he compelled those feelings to come forth within her. She felt her heart tugging, the beat quickening as a numbness started to spread through her body. Her arms fell from around him, and yet he continued to hold her to him, his midnight eyes boring into hers, as if he would brand the fire of his pain right onto her very soul, and use it to swallow her whole…

"HELLO!?"

_:Feel the pain…burn with it…burn with the betrayal and pain and anguish…feel it as I feel it…feel it as I die with it…as you die with it…:_

Sango felt disoriented and sick, her body weakening and growing numb as Miroku continued to hold her to him, his essence drawing on hers, calling up all the terrible feelings as if savoring them like a fine wine. She felt as if she were being drained, as if he were consuming her, and icy terror sprang through her mind as she realized that he was.

"Okay, that's fucking enough. Let her go. I've had about enough of your shit." Bankotsu's snarl seemed distant, fading, as her awareness grew dim.

_:Feel the pain, Sango…feel it, feel it for me…give it to me…yes, that's it…:_

She felt herself fading into it, drowning within the pain, her soul being sucked down into the whirlpool of agonized anguish as he drew it into him, and her along with it. She knew the end, saw it, felt it, and the stark terror she had of it only fed him more.

_:Yes, Sango…feed me…:_

"LET HER GO, PERVERT!"

There was a scream, a high-pitched wailing that seared itself into Sango's brain as she screamed herself at the raw echo of it, her ears bleeding as her mind shattered, and suddenly the awful draw that wrapped itself around her and fed on her despair was swept away with a howl as clean steel sliced through the mental fog of it. The miasma of pain and anguish and greedy hunger snapped away from her as she fell to the ground, chest heaving and heart thudding as she drew in great, lungful breaths of welcome air.

Bankotsu was there, grabbing on to her arm and forcing her up to her wobbly feet. She fell against him, shuddering, as she turned to look at what she thought was her houshi, and saw a being so disgusting it made her gasp.

All pretense and illusion was gone. The being who stood there, wreathed in a diseased-looking yellow-green foggy glow was something straight out of a nightmare. He bore a faint resemblance to humanity, though it was a skeletal, emaciated form with every bone clearly showing through the papery stretch of his sickly green skin. His face was odd, the forehead broad with wisps of lank gray hair, the eyes deep hollows that glowed a hungry, vicious yellow. His lipless mouth and chin disappeared into his overlong neck, as if he had no lower jaw there to hold it, and his belly stuck out over the torn rag he wore as a scant loincloth.

_:Damn you!: _His voice was like claws on glass, and his knobby fingers curled into fists that he shook in impotent rage at them, like an angry child.

Sango felt as if the world had dropped out from under her. Her mouth fell open, and she stared at the maddened creature who cursed them with unholy rage, shaking its fists and beating its hands on the ground. This--thing--that she had thought Miroku, her lost beloved, it was but a _gaki_, one of the greedy undead who fed on the living, forever hungering for what it could never have enough of in life. Only once before had she been confronted with one of their ilk--back in the illusionary castle of Kaguya, the pretend moon-maiden of ancient legend. She had been but a _gaki_, one who fed on the souls of others, taking their powers and bodies for her own as she devoured them. Her true form, a roiling black cloud of howling smoke, had been swallowed by Miroku's Wind Tunnel, but Sango knew from her father that _gaki_ could take other forms, and that this one was considered a lesser one when compared to the powerful Kaguya. Whereas Kaguya fed on the souls of others, this one fed on their pain, using the same false illusions the other had in order to lure their prey and feed.

She had almost succumbed to it, believing this _thing_ her beloved houshi returned, and she felt an icy rage build up inside of her at the disgusting horror of it. _'How dare he take my feelings and use them like that! I should have known--Miroku would never, could never, do that--he loved me too much, loved me enough to only want what would make me happy, and here I have been allowing grief to lessen the true gift of his sacrifice--what a fool I have been, what a stupid fool!'_

There was time to make up for that, and she felt a sudden, inner peace and rightness inside her doubting heart. Miroku was gone--his spirit rested, content, in the otherworld, as did the spirits of her forefathers. It was only she who had hung on to his memory, cheapening the sweet gift of his love and sacrifice by not using his gift to her of life by not living it.

_'I'm sorry, Miroku. I love you…'_

Her hand tightened over Bankotsu's on the hilt of one sword, and he looked down at her, his blue eyes narrowing as he suddenly grinned, his white teeth flashing in his tan face. Nodding slightly, he let her take his sword and stepped back away so she could do what she must to finally bury the past.

The _gaki_, snarling its rage, taunted her. _:Stupid human, stupid whore! You betray one who loved you for another…I saw it in your mind…I saw it!:_

"You're in for it now, ugly. You should have run while you had the chance." Bankotsu's smile was a bloodthirsty as Sango's narrowed gaze. She stalked the spindly green creature, who whined and blubbered in terror at the look in her dark gaze. Stumbling over his own feet, he back-pedaled, holding his knobby hands up in a gibbering plea for mercy as she followed after him. He screeched obscenities, snarling at her as he suddenly jumped forward into a last, desperate attack, his hands reaching for her throat. Sango stood her ground, swinging the sword in a two-handed grip, and his despairing wail of angry denial abruptly cut off, leaving only empty silence as the sickly green glow dissolved, the darkness of night descending once more.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

He could not see her in the sudden darkness, but he heard her take a deep, shuddering breath and felt her turning towards him. He reached out for her, cupping her face in one calloused palm as he brought her to him. He meant only to hug her to him, thinking that was all she would want from him right now, but he felt her chin rise up to his, and he welcomed her kiss, his heart swelling as her lips moved over his with a sudden, hungry need.

Her tongue swept into his mouth, her lips greedily feasting on his as he groaned at the sweet surprise of it. His fingers trailed across her cheek, burying themselves into the tangled tendrils at the base of her neck as he drew her closer to him. Dropping his sword to the dirt, he used both hands to enfold her to him, pressing his kiss deeper as he curled his larger frame around hers. They broke apart, breathless and panting, the whispers of her name on his lips heavy in the warm air between them. "Sango…Sango…"

"Bankotsu…Bankotsu, I…"

"Don't say anything, Sango--not yet. I know this must have been hard for you. I'm sorry."

"Oh, just shut up and kiss me again, idiot. Don't you know how much I love you? It took a damn demon to show me just how much. Gods, I feel so stupid for hanging on to the past for so long."

"Wait--what?" He didn't know what surprised him more--her words or the boldness that sounded so much more like him than her.

"Are you going to kiss me or not?" She tugged on the back of his neck, where the fingers of her left hand had curled into his braid.

Well, what the hell. Bending his head back down, he gave himself up to it. What else was a poor mercenary to do?

ooOOooOOooOOoo

They stumbled their way back out of the woods, leaning on each other like a pair of drunks as they stopped to kiss occasionally, their motions tentative and wondering even as they grew in need and intensity. He had managed to sheath one of his swords, but she still held the other in her hand, only stopping to wipe the gore form it once they reached the grassy, overgrown fields. The moon was a half-crescent in the clear night's sky, and there was no sense of the divine or otherworldly within the empty silence.

He took her short-sword then, sheathing it with the other, and swung her up in his arms. She shrieked at the sudden move, and he was bounding off with a laugh as he carried her at a run across the fields. She hung on to his wide shoulders, barely gasping out, "You're crazy! What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm carrying you home, taijiya, and I'm going to fuck the shit out of you. Do you know how long I've been waiting for this moment? My god, I thought my poor balls were going to fall off!" His voice was muffled by his hard breaths as he quickened his pace into a ground-eating sprint.

"But--Mikomi--Kirara--wait--" Her protest was broken by the jarring pace he set, her words nearly lost in the wind of his passage.

There was a muffled oath, and he abruptly stopped, right in the middle of the grassy field closest to the palisade, which rose before them in a shadowy wooden barrier. The side-gate, still open, was just to their right, but neither of them cared. Sango stared up at him, her mouth open as his dark eyes looked into hers and he said with such seriousness it made her heart tighten in her chest, "Do you know how much I love you? Can you know? Stupid woman, I can't--"

Her gasp was muffled as his mouth claimed hers in hot passion. Desire shot through her like lightning, sending electric sensations coursing through her body as they tumbled down to the grass right there in the middle of the deserted field. She twisted her mouth away from his, gasping out, "Bankotsu! What are you doing--"

"I'm fucking you, taijiya, right here, right now, in this damn field. I can't wait any longer--"

"But--"

"Gods, you're stubborn. I don't know why I love you--you drive me stark raving crazy--by the Boils, I love it…"

His hands were shoving apart her simple yukata even as she pushed at his shoulders, flushed with the sudden, heady shock of it. She moaned, the need burning itself inside of her, the need to know and touch and feel and burn, know again that passion he had evoked within her so long ago. She punched his shoulder, growling her wane protest even as she succumbed to his desire. "I drive you crazy? You're the one who drives me cr--"

He kissed her, long and hard, drawing her tongue inside his mouth to play before breaking apart to gasp out on shuddering breaths, "You talk too damn much…"

oOo _Edited _oOo

They fell in a lax heap of tangled limbs, their breaths shuddering as she felt his heart thudding against hers. She nuzzled his chin where it rested against her shoulder, and he turned to kiss her, his tongue slowly delving inside to twine with hers. It was a sweet kiss, slow and exploring, and his whispers against her bruised lips made her hug him to her, never, ever, wanting to let go.

"Love you, slayer…love you…gods, I love you…"

Never, ever, wanting to let go.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

Curling herself around the exhausted toddler, who now slept, albeit reluctantly, Kirara let out a wide yawn, her tongue curling out as her eyes slitted nearly closed. Her ears flicked toward the distant silence that had finally descended on the village and fields, and she purred with drowsy contentment as she laid her head on her black paws. Assured all was well and good between Sango and her mate, she contemplated that it was good that they had finally found each other. Kirara, for one, didn't mind babysitting now and then, if they needed some privacy. She could hardly blame them. She might just have to go hunting herself someday…now that was a sweet thought…one worth dreaming of…


End file.
